End of the World. Beginning of a new one. The Life of Amberwolf.

[marty]

I have no knowledge of dog medical work but it seem like you are giving Tiny a lot of medicine. Less medicine might make for less problems.

Unless the dog is doing something important like flying a airplane, why not ignore a occasional seizure?

Poem to help with the yard clean up. "When in doubt, Throw it out."

 

[amberwolf]

problem withe stuff at the haouse is not what to throw out, it's just having the help to acutally move the stuff into the sheds that i wanted to keep, cuz some is too heavy or bulky for me to move entirely by myself (that and the being htere alone being impossible). With Mark's help I was able to do most of the big stuff today, and the rest i hopefully can do tomororw and/or staturday by myself, wiht tiny there for emotional support, whihc worked the last time, 2-3 week sago i guess it was.


Anyway, the acutal cleanup par ti couldn't do cuz there is no where to put it, since the big dumpster is for construcditon stuff only now, and there's never been much room in the city trash or recylce bins to put anything in there--other people keep filling it up to overflowing before i ever get the chance to use it for my stuff--been trying since the fire, and hav emanybe gotten a dozen bags of trash and/or recycle stuff in there. Problme is whenever there are sites like this wiht construction, lots of other people that don't want to pay to dump trash in the city dump just take it to residential or business trashcans or alleyways and dump it there. my area is really popular for that evne normally, but right now it's several times worse--there are always piles of trash and stuff in the alley behind the house cuz i gues sthey figure no on eowuld notice it anyway, or else they firgure this house will just get blamed for it (which is true cuz the city doesn't care who put it there, only that whoever lives there can't have that stuff there).

.

Regarding tiny's meds, she's only actually on one "permanent" med: Phenobarbitol for the siezures. The other stuff she's on is Amoxicillin for her UTI, and that's not optional--without that she could die of the infection or damage from it. Then there's the meds for her ear infection, which are mostly done, I think just a week or so to go, IIRC. Seems to already be cleared up but always better to continue longer just in case, than end up with a resistant infection form stopping too early.


Also, it's not really my option as to what meds she takes, cuz technically she isn't my dog--i'm permanently fostering her, but the rescue group is still in charge of her medical care. Even if i were to decide not to keep her on the meds, i would have ot wean her slowly off of the PB siezure meds, cuz there can be other worse side effects of a sudden withdrawal of it. But realistically it's probably better to keep her on the PB meds--imagine if i was out walking her somewhere on a sidewalk , and she had a siezure where she collapsed and convulsed into th way of a car or something. She'd be run over before I could do a thing abou tit, most likely, and I probably couldnt' hold her up while she was convulsing, unlike being able to restrain her from lunging off teh sidewalk, which is easy to do. .

Not that it's likely she'd ever WANT to go walking where there's any traffic, given her fear of noises and stuff, but she's continually getting better about that, so someday she might be able to do it.


I don't kinow if there are any other reasons to keep her on the siezure meds, becuase i don't know what other problems the siezures might cause that would be worse than the meds sideeffects.

presently those sideffects are gradually getting better, except for the thirsties.

 

[amberwolf]

Today Tiny and I went to the house to try to finish the cleanup/sorting Mark and I started yesterday, so the landlord can haul off all the rest of it. Here's Tiny just after we got as done as we could at the house, about to head out:




On our way there, between 930-10am, going up 31st Ave as usual, we got to the Camelback entrance of the instead-of-31st-ave-bike-path, and found some sort of walkathon in progress, with at least hundreds, if not a couple thousand, pedestrians essentially completely filling the path, all headed south (while I was going north). As I stopped before the entrance, the police officer (on bicycle) at that entrance said to go ahead and go thru, but be careful, and stay to the right (both of which I'd've done anyway, but I guess some people might not, without being told). I continued slowly on in, at around 8MPH or so (slowest I can ride without wobblies ready to tip over), and found that most people were going around me, but some were simply staring straight ahead, obviously knowing I was there but pointedly not looking at me or the bike, and just walking right where they were as if pretending I didn't exist would mean they wouldn't run into me.

So I had to keep creeping rightward farther and farther (I was trying to leave a few inches of wiggle room on the right for hte trailer wheel) until that wheel went off the edge of the concrete pathway, into the gravel. At that point I had to stop cuz the height difference is so much there' sno way to just haul it back up there without swerving VERy far to the left, blocking the whole path. Since it was a shady spot, I just pulled forward enough to let Tiny be in the shade, and checked on her, made sure she stil had water, and waited until there was a gap in the walkers big enough to get back on the path.

A couple of minutes later that happened ok, but not after several people had actually walked right into the bike or the trailer--in broad daylight, with dozens of other poeple aroudn them walking around it, and some of them actually looking right at it (but most of the ones that did it were as said above--deliberately looking anywhere but at it or me). Lots of people were even slowing and pointing at Tiny in the trailer, saying things like "cute dog" or "big dog" or "isn't that a Beethoven dog?", etc. Some of the people that walked into the bike did so in company wiht such people, while looking right at Tiny in the trailer. Given that I was only taking up about a foot and a half, two feet at most, of the actual path, with most of the bike (both wheels and everything to the right of them) and half the trailer off the path, bike leaning rightward off the path, I'd call it something of an accomplishment to manage to walk into either of them.


I made it down a little further with only a few people doing the same "ignore it and it'll magically disappear" act, all of them pulled or pushed over to the other side of the path by their companions (most people were in groups, probably friends), but had to stop again for another group of even dumber ones that really were just going to keep walking right into me, despite pletny of empty space on the path to their right (my left). Even stopped, I again had them walk into the trailer and the bike, stumbling. They definitely weren't blind, as they looked directly at things people pointed out to them or their phones while texting or whatever, same as wiht the previous bunch.

When I got to the halfway (quarter-mile-down-the-path) "roundabout" where the street that would cross the path deadeands between it's halves, I decided I and the walkers would be a lot safer if I just went around the block instead (a bout a mile's detour cuz of how far east I have to go before I can go back north, and then west again to 31st ave, before I can go north on 31st again). Even so, just trying to get off the path, I had to wait again until people would let me thru the space between the pillars that keep cars from getting on the path, and even THEN there were walkers that didn't even slow down seeing me trying to exit that path and turn right, and they went to *my* right, even though I had a turn signal going and was trying to turn rightward, and I had to turn left to let them by because they weren't going to stop, and I would have hit htem (at less than 2-3MPH cuz I was duckwalking teh biek at that point, but still...).


Then i had to wait for another gap behind them to actually turn righ tand get out of the walkathon mess!



Anyway...nohting else really dumb or notable happened on the way to the house, other than the usual cars that turn across my path when there's no time fo rhtem to do that, or back up out of driveways right in front of other cars (or me) when it's too late for us to stop, forcing us to go around htem into the opposite direction's lane to avoid hitting htem, and things like that. Nothing notable, nothing unusual, really.




Tiny enjoyed bieng at the house for a while, except for when the people fixing it up started using the nail guns and hammmers and power saws, etc., at which point she decided the best place to be was the farthest northwest corner of the yard, on the iother side of all the sheds, away from the house and noise. Mostly, she took naps almost the whole time we were there, except when i came over to see her, or walked leashlessly around the yard with her. Had to put her on a leash for half an hour or so while the big truck cmae to haul off the full dumpster and drop off an empty, so we sat down and had lunch while they did that. She LOVED the lunch part of it. :lol: Some pics of things partway thru the day:













For a while, at one point, the crew left, so she wandered aorund again and laid down next to what will become the back door (they hadn't cut the hole in the siding yet), and just enojoyed the shade and watched me move stuff around. When they came back sh ewent back to her hiding spot in the corner of the yard, after she greeted a couple of htem (she likes them, just not the noise).





View attachment 13




I finally managed to mvoe eveyritng I could physically move that needs to go over into one of the two big piles, and all the stuff that stays up against or between teh sheds, except for the aquariums and the big desk and rack cabinet...those are all too heavy for me to move by myself, and I don't know hwen I will be able to get help over to do it (it'd probably take several people at once). Hopefully I will be able to leave the stuff in front of th shed doors, both to deter looters and thieves, and because the only way I could do anything else with it is to build yet another shed to put it in. I have another kit to do that with...though not all the screws and stuff, so I'd have to get the company to ship me a bag of screws (they never did get back with me about that from several months ago, so I don't know that they care enough to bother, even if I was paying for it; I might end up just having to buy a box of each kind of screw and nut from the hardware store). And then I'd need help assembling it; I might be able to do it on my own, given enough time, but since this is the last vacation I can take until after the first of the year, and I get only two days off a week (not usually in a row, either), then I would probably end up taking until after I'd already moved back in just to *build* the shed, not including the time taken to move the stuff into it afterward...and at that point I wouldn't need the shed cuz I could just move it into the house (it's furniture and appliances, mostly, anyway).


Some pics when nearly done for hte day:




View attachment 5



View attachment 3

View attachment 2




So...the house's yard is as cleaned up as *I* can get it right now. The landlord will take care of removing the "debris" in the next week. But in order for me to do this so fast, I basically just had to shove whatever I could fit into the sheds wherever it will fit, crammed to the isnide of the roof. So there is no way I can get to anything that's in there now, until after I move back in and start going thru stuff. That sucks. But it would take me a day just to get stuff out of a shed and back in, not including time to dig thru what's in there to actually get whatever it was I came for. So I'm definitely not gonna be able to do any more work on the bike this year, at least not anything that I don't already have parts or tools for here at the apartment, or else have to go out and buy new again. So much for my plans of organizing things to be able to weld on better cargo rails, etc., (see the CrazyBike2 thread fo rthat) or to do some of the fixes to the trailer I wanted to. (see the Flatbed Kennel trailer Mk2 thread for that info).


Progress on the house itself is slow; they've completed part of the outside of teh new back room, but the roof is nowhere near done, or the sealing/trim on the outside, and none of the inside is done. The rest o the house is partly done; I don't know how long it will be before it'll be complete, but still best estimate is end of this year sometime, at best.





There's still no water to the house at all, so I have to bring anything me or Tiny will need, including whatever I'll need to wash up at the end of whatever I am doing there. Thankfully old 2 and 3 liter soda bottles carry water just as well, and fit in the cargo pods on the bike or under the edges of TIny's blanket in the trailer...but they're heavy in any quantity to be useful.


Looters have stolen a fair bit of the bicycle stuff that I had not yet been able to stuff into sheds, including at least three whole bicycles and a couple of hte frames I wanted to keep. Of course, they didn't touch the MULTIPLE complete and functional bicycles that are against the fence waiting to be tossed out or recycled...which have been there since the first days of cleanup and would be easy for them to take. NONE of those have been touched, at all, even though they'd be easier to get, and in many cases are much better bikes than the ones I saved (and stacked tangled together between the sheds so they'd be really hard to get loose and steal) becuse i saved those not for the quality of htem, but because they had specific parts I wanted to use or happened to be of a type I wanted to do a specific experiment with, or were exactly the same as others I had or had parts of, to use paired parts off of for a trike idea I'd had.

Anyway, it doesn't make sense which things they stole, as there's much easier to get and better stuff out by the fence where they could easily get it and find it, isntead of digging thru the stuff tha'ts hard to get and sort thru or even reach. But that's what they've consistently done, for the last several months now.

I cant WAIT until I'm moved back in and they come try this...when I have Tiny there, and especially once I get OTHER dogs, too. Between us we will visit wrath and fear upon the thieves.



This wall of text is long enough, I guess, so I'll put the rest of my adventures and information over in those two threads.

 

[amberwolf]

4am, woke up to silence---power outage so the box fan wasn't on anymore, and Tiny didn't like it any more thna I did, but it was close to time for walkies....

I looked around out the bedrooom window, and didnt' see anything, except a fire truck going past lights on but silent, on Thomas, but it was dark out there (no streetlights) for as far as I could see, except for the skyscrapers downtown a few miles away. Traffic lights at 23rd & thomas were flashing red both ways. I started to look out the front room winodw but the power came back on just then, and all I saw was the sudden bright glare of all the lights outside coming back on, including the one just over my window.

I looked out the bedroom window again, where the overhead light hadn't come back on yet (it's slow), and saw what looked like ground-level fireworks aobut a half mile directly east of me, with a rising tower of smoke above it--given the power outage, that means a huge transformer fire, most likely.

I recorded some of it on video and got a few stills, but there's no bandwidth to upload it right now on the very poor signal I'm getting from DD across the street, so if I ever get them uplaoded I'll link htem here. Cna't see much cuz the camera has no physical zoom, just electronic, which makes it even worse, but given how far away it is from me you cna still see how "spectacular" it must've been at the scene.


The power shut back off pretty quick, a minute or so, I guess, maybe more, and the fireworks stopped instantly (so definitely electrrical fire), but the sparks were stil going up large enough for me to see even without my glasses on (and that means really bright and realy big cuz I can't see crap without them past arm's length), and the glow of the flashing lights of the multiple emergency vehicles that must've already been on scene by then lit the bottom ofa huge cloud of smoke, which by then I could see in it's pink underside reflection up to a couple of miles from the fire itself (the rest of the sky was totally cloudless and VERY clear).


Power went on and off a couple more times, with predictable results at the fire location, instant fireworks, then stayed off. I was curious what this area looks like in the dark (becuase it's pretty well lit normally, so much so that you can't even see any but the brightest handful of stars and planets, and then only if you shield your eyes from the lights in your direct view), so I put on some warm clothes and went out (without Tiny at first, cuz I didn't know how mahy other people would be wandering around).

First thing I noticed was that I could see about as many stars as I could from my backyard at the house, maybe even more. Then I realized the only lights were from some of the traffic lights, and a few things south and east and west of here, and hten a ways north, plus the handful of "streetlights" we have in the parking lot here around the power substation (which is on the other side of the wall at the doggie park area). I guess those must run directly off the substation rather than whatever transformers or subcircuits we have for the apartments and the area around us.


The security guard was out patrolling, which made me a little more comfortable, but he was the only person I saw at all whiel I was walking around--unusual, cuz normally a power outage at any time of day or night brings lots of people outside to see what the heck happened, since it is so very rare these days.

I walked out to Thomas, and across 23rd ave, to try to see anything, but all I could see was a wall of emergency vehicles right about half a mile down the road at 19th Ave. The fire itself is probably at the next street north from there, a few dozen yards or so, I'd guess. couldn't see it at all, and I wasn't gonna walk down there. I seriously considered riding the bike down to look, but I would just be in the way and probably wouldn't be able to get close enough to see anything anyway---they usually block those kinds of fires off for quite a ways away.


My guess is a car crash into a transformer, or maybe a big utility pole taking it down with it's wires. Won't know till it shows up on news sites or whatever, if it does at all, though. it's now 550am, almost two hours later, and havent' seen anything with a google search yet.


My walkabout was around 420am to 440am, then I went back in and got Tiny and we did our usual walkies around the complex, then back to the apartmetn to get the laptop, then over here to the gate across from DD to use their wifi hotspot to post about it, check email, etc. Sometime after we started the latter part, power came back on here and hasnt' gone off again--I could hear the huge THUNK CLICK at the substation of the relays clicking over when it came back on, and that scared Tiny quite a bit, though she recovered quicker than I expected.


Anyway, now that we've posted we'll probably go have a nap before dawn comes, and then it'll be her breakfast/meds time and time for another walkies....

 

[powersupply]

Just found this section today, read through a few, the member to meber deal gone wrong and Isles of Man etc.
And then this thread.

Thoug I personally don't have or care to have any pets, I must say I was really moved by your story.

And appreciate that you keep all posted with your well written and good to follow thoughts and updates.

I came back to say this: your dogs had the best time with you, as much as you did care and spent time with them.

I see people get a dog and lock it up in their appartments for nine to ten hours nearly every day. Longer if their masters go out after work.
Those poor dogs spend the whole day bored to death and have nowhere to go. A whole life wasted just for a few brief moments.

In that regard, you provided a heaven for your dogs, and though they were taken too early, they had a fulfilled life.

 

[amberwolf]

Thanks...I hope I gave them better than they'd've had otherwise, at least. :|


The junk at the house was more than half gone yesterday when I went by on my way to work, but I forgot to snap pics. Maybe will get some on my way there today.


I don't know if I ever posted a pic of Tiny's favorite position these days:


Right in front of the box fan I leave running for white noise both at night when we're sleeping, and when I have to leave her there alone (cuz it keeps her from being perturbed by every little noise outside). Sometimes I can come home and get all the way to the bed, turning on the light and everything, before she wakes up (like in this shot).

Another random pic of her checking her p-mail in the doggie park:

View attachment 3


a couple days ago there was a clever crow drinking out of cans and bottles (which people often toss out in the parking lot, being too lazy to bother putting in the trash) with a straw, near the doggie park. I tried several times to get a pic of him actually doing it, but the stupid phone takes up to several seconds to respond to user input, especially in camera mode, so all I ever managed was to get pics of him on the railing trying to re-grab the short little red straw in the right way to use it. Every other time I tried, he'd have given up on a particular bottle or can and flown bakc to the railing befor eI could get the camera to take a pic.

Unfortunatley the camera has no zoom either, so you can barely see the crow itself much less the straw. I *almost* got a pic of him trying to use the straw to drink from the doggie watering "trough", in the dpark, but Tiny noticed him and trotted over to investigate just as I was pressing the button, so all i would've gotten was a pic of the trough itself. Oh, well.








.

 

[winkinatcha]

Goddamn Pedestrians... Holy cow AW... well done for keeping your cool interacting with the walkathon... I doubt I would be so resilient.

Joe

 

[dingoEsride]

blowed if I can see a crow, did the transformer fire pics turn out ok?

Another random pic of her checking her p-mail in the doggie park:

is this doggy park part of the complex where you live?

Wait a sec, I just spotted it

 

[amberwolf]

Goddamn Pedestrians... Holy cow AW... well done for keeping your cool interacting with the walkathon... I doubt I would be so resilient.

Well, I have learned to be patient (it has been a long hard road ) as much as possible with people, since I can't change how they act, and I'm sure none of them would even stop and listen to me even if I tried to explain to them the problem with their behavior in the nicest possible way, putting it in terms of their own safety....because if they can't figure it out on their own, I really doubt telling them will do much good. It'll take some sort of dramatic incident that they are directly involved in caused by their own actions or inaction to change their thinking and behavior--and it's easily possible that even that won't do it, based on my observations of people over my lifetime so far.

I just roll my eyes when I see it (sometimes literally, sometimes just in my thoughts), and I am often thinking some pretty horrible things about some of these types of people...but I don't say them, and I usually don't show it either, since it rarely helps and pretty much never changes what they do--at best they'd just not change, and at worst they'd get mad at *me* for what their own stupidity has done. Easier to just sit back with popcorn and watch the "show".


Speaking of "shows": today there were several stupid incidents. The first was a pedestrian walking across Thomas in front of the apartments--in the middle of zooming traffic, which instead of any of them slowing down even a little, at midday rush hour, just went around him--often into the opposing lanes of the other direction of traffic, forcing *them* to swerve too. By some miracle no one hit anyone else.

The second was a truck that was behind me as I turned onto 26th Ave, and stayd behind me even though they could have easily passed me then, but instead they waited until I was going around the northwest-bound blind curve, and then they slammed their brakes on hard and swerved towards me because there was another, bigger truck heading straight for them...but of course being a blind curve they couldn't have seen that (which is why they should know better than to try to pass if they can't see what's ahead). Both trucks stopped without hitting me or each other, but it was a narrow thing, and I had accelerated hard hwne I saw them both begin to swerve towards me to avoid each other, and I was no longer where either one woul dhave hit me even if they *had* kept going. As I rounded the next corner of the blind curve I could see them getting going again in the correct lanes, then the truck that had been behind me turned around and went back the other way....weird..


Next, as I headed down Clarendon, west from 28th Ave to 31st Ave, I was passing the spot where there's a foot-plus deep sinkhole a couple yards from the right (north) edge of the road, and I always go left (south) around it, unless traffic prevents. Well, there was a very small car (yugo?) parked near there with engine running and doors open, no one in it, so I went even further around than I usually do to clear their door. Just as i was passing the car and then the hole, someone ran out from the other side of the road and into the car, then screeched off to my right--doors still open on both sides!, almost hitting the no parking sign right next to the hole with the rightside door, and they did hit the hole itself, which bottmed the car out and slammed the passenger door shut, and caused them to swerve twoards me but then they just STOPPED, and engine died. I dunno what happened after that as I rounded the corner at 31st Ave at that point.


Then...past the bike-path section, as I was heading towards a 15mph school zone, a rent-a-center delivery truck (all of which seem to be driven by morons and assholes, AFAICT) went from going straight thru a stop sign to a slight rightward (southward) angle putting them partly the wrong direction but basiclaly straight across my lane (a little less than 1/4 mile down the road from me, in the actual school zone), almost hit a parked car, and managed to somehow trap themselves between the sidewalk curb and the median curb between the opposing traffic direction lanes (right there, it's basically one lane plus bike lane plus parking area). As i slowed way down, about 10mph, continuing to approach them, they kept backing up and hitting the median with their tires, being somehow unable to go up over it at all, then going forward and bieng unable to go up over teh sidewalk curb, and bakc and forth (not turning their wheels at all, so not trying to "rock" their way out of the situation in a slight curve, which is what they should have done). Before I reached them there is a cutout in the median for people to U turn or cross the street so I had to go the wrong way on that street to go around them...and the cars behind me had to do the same thing, although the first car behind me just kept going until he was a few feet from the rac truck, and then was unable to proceed at all, and just sat there honking his horn. I could still hear that honking for quite a long ways, past the traffic light 1/2 mile north of there, and I was at the light waiting to cross it for 35 seconds, plus time to reach it, so I'd guess he was probably pretty pissed off by then. I have no idea what finally happened but the truck was still across the lane at the last point I could see them in my mirrors.


Then there was an SUV behind me on that really narrow part of 31st ave just north of orangewood, the one where people usually try to pass me only at the no-passing zone at the ends instead of where it would make sense...and this one was no smarter than any other--except this time he did decide to try to pass me before then, though he wasn't looking in the oncoming side of the road when he did, and had to swerve hard back into our side when he saw the long line of traffic about to smack right into him, which he probably only saw because they laid into their horns (at least two of them did from the sounds, mayb emore). then he slammed on his brakes and just sat there in the way on the northbound side fo teh road, blocking the cars behind him. He was still sitting there when I reached the end of the narrow section about 1/8 mile north of him and continued on my way, then I couldn't see him in the mirrors. But he didn't pass me at any point from there. Maybe he had to go home and change his underwear?


Then I get to Metrocenter...and Metro Parkway, which is a median-divided oval around Metrocenter, one way on each side of the median. Almost as soon as I turned right, as I was passing what used to be Golf N Stuff, a police SUV came down *my* side of that median, in the left lane, thankfully. No lights, no siren, not going fast, just driving as if it was the most normal thing in the world to GO THE WRONG WAY ON THE ONE WAY ROAD, while cars that werent' expecting this to have to suddenly slam on brakes and try to swerve to the right (almost into other cars already in the lane behind me) as they finally realized what was in front of them.

A little ways down, 1/8 mile or more, another little car did exactly the same thing, and fortunately people were a little more alert now so they didnt' react as slowly or haphazardly as the first time. But I still expected to hear a crash at any moment.

(this kind of thing is not unusual at Metrocenter, htough that' sthe first police vehicle I've ever seen on the wrong side).

Something else stupid also happend in the parking lot at work but I don't even remember what it was now. Not as memorable as the others. :lol:

blowed if I can see a crow, did the transformer fire pics turn out ok?
<snip>
is this doggy park part of the complex where you live?

Wait a sec, I just spotted it

Yeah, the park is at the southeast corner of the wall bordering the local power substation that's northwest of the complex. it's not a big park but it's more than big enough for Tiny...or it would be if it had grass or turf all over, instead of hte little pointy slippery gravel it has everywhere except those two squares of fake grass/turf. So she will really only even try to "run" while on the turf, cuz she's slipped a couple times on the gravel and went down, and she will no longer trust it. (plus it's pointy and hurts her old toes when she runs on it).

Sorry the crow is so hard to see--like I said the camera on the phone sucks, and Ididn't have the better phone/camera with me at the time (it's battery dies in only a few hours even if I don't use it at all, just having it powered on but in standby...so I basically just charge it up, then turn it on to take specific pictures of things, then turn it off and recharge it. But it will ONLY charge when hooked ot the laptop's USB port via data cable, and won't charge via any wall charger, even though those chargers work fine on the crappy phone. Will eventually replace the battery but not until I *need* to, cuz I'd rather buy a dedicated really good camera instead).


Transformer fire pics...I gave up trying to upload the vids, it just times out cuz bandwidth is too low, but I forgot to get the stills uploaded. Can'tdo it right now so I will try next chance I get. They're not very good (even the "better" phone/camera is still pretty terrible for that kind of pic, without a physical zoom, especially low-light).

 

[dannyboyohyeah]

Amberwolf~
I'm very late in reading this...it's been months.
It's so deep and complex.....to lose everything. Very few people to talk WITH about it all. Almost no one has been there.
I also lost a home to fire and my best buddy.
I became nearly violently intolerant of people's petty and small complaints. I was sick with grief, like swords in my body. That was nine years ago.
What a slog, through concrete emotions, lostness, isolation, and not much of a sense of hope.
My friends held me up, even though they could never get right there with me...they were right there with me in their hopes for me. I learned a great deal about the softness of human spirit.....it's value....and it's perservering kindness. They let me go off. They kept me.
We will keep you..... you are a giver in need of being given to.
What can I do for you? Dan

 

[oatnet]

The crow is "concealed" against the passenger window of the white truck, right?

-JD

 

[amberwolf]

Yes, it is. I meant to put a circle around it in the pics but I guess I forgot.

I've seen (presumably) that same crow around with various straws trying to scavenge from soda cups, beer bottles, cans of assorted drinks (it seems to prefer sodas or energy drinks, which I guess makes sense for a bird), etc. I don't think it knows the difference between an empty one and one with something in it until it has tried it's straw trick at least a couple times, though, and it does go back to empty ones it's already tried and failed on, if the wind moves them around. Still, the straw thing was a clever tool to use since it can't get it's beak to the liquid otherwise.

Amberwolf~
I'm very late in reading this...it's been months.
It's so deep and complex.....to lose everything. Very few people to talk WITH about it all. Almost no one has been there.
I also lost a home to fire and my best buddy.
I became nearly violently intolerant of people's petty and small complaints. I was sick with grief, like swords in my body. That was nine years ago.
What a slog, through concrete emotions, lostness, isolation, and not much of a sense of hope.
My friends held me up, even though they could never get right there with me...they were right there with me in their hopes for me. I learned a great deal about the softness of human spirit.....it's value....and it's perservering kindness. They let me go off. They kept me.
We will keep you..... you are a giver in need of being given to.
What can I do for you? Dan

I very much appreciate your sharing ofyour similar circumstances, and your offer. I don't know what you could do, really, right now, unless you wanna stand guard at the house and shoot looters in the face with indelible-ink paintballs, or something like that. :lol: I am sure I will need *something* else, soon enough, but other than a place (like this one) to "rant" or whatever, and people that care even when they don't really know me, I am not sure what else I could ask for right now.

Mostly, I'm materially covered for the moment, though I expect once I move back in (whenever that is) to the house I will be able to slowly figure out what I have lost and what I still have, and what I still need that I can't find on freecycle, etc., or buy with what's been donated so far.

 

[amberwolf]

Been raining last two days; mostly sprinkles yesterday until after dark, been pouring off and on since then, pretty heavily today.

Before the rain started, they added two "barrels" as "toys" at the doggie park...but they are too small for Tiny to use to run thru, and she won't crawl thru them even with treats as an encouragement--she just walks around them to try to get me to give her the treat, cuz she slips on the curved surface, and anything she slips on, she won't even TRY to walk on after that unless she has NO choice. Which is why she doesn't like to run at the park anymore, cuz she has slipped on the pointy gravel a couple of times, and on the fake grass sections a couple more. Sometimes I can get her to run for a few seconds at a time anyway, but as soon as she loses traction at all, she's totally done with running for the day.






I did get her to crawl halfway into one of the barrels to get a treat, once, but after that, she won't do it at all. She just goes around them like they're some sort of alien trap. :lol:



Last night, it was about to start pouring when we needed to go on her walkies right after I got home, and both because she doesnt' really like baths/being soaked, and because I didn't want to have to dry her off (or deal with a soaked bed) after the walkies, I put my orange raincoat on her, sleeves tied in the back and a velcro strap aorund her belly to hold it on, and tied the hood's drawstring to keep it out of her eyes.


View attachment 3


Of course, she dind't like the hood at all and kept shaking it off, so she ended up with a soaked head, but the rest of her except paws and lower legs were dry.



View attachment 1


And anothe rpic of her being bored with my experiments..this time with me setting up the EIG lighting pack for running the laptop via it's AC adapter input plug.






At the house they are working on the inside of the house, both days--I saw them hauling in rolls of insulation and panels of wallboard, so I guess they ahve the wiring and piping and whatnot all done to be able to put that up. I haven't had a chance to actually stop and check it out yet, though. They're still cleaning up the stuff in the yard, probably in between other things they ahve to do while there.

I want to help with it but I am hurting so much from the weather changes I am not good for much more htan hobbling around even at my workplace (yesterday I actually volunteered to be cashier at the register so I wouldn't ahve to walk around, and I HATE being cashier...so that says something about how bad it is just at the moment. Today is probably about as bad, but I get used to it a little more each day it continues, usually, so I was able to do more despite it...but not very much more or for very long at a time).

 

[dogman dan]

Sorry to hear that water from the sky makes you hurt so bad. The big cold front went through here yesterday, but you are still hogging the water so far. I couldn't believe my shoulders were not howling when the front went by, but I bet they will when the low gets here.

Our first Bernard, Max, never got the hang of the dog door. He was always scared of it, it was just too weird for him going through the flap. He also had a great bit of difficulty with uncarpeted surfaces. When we went to concrete floor, he just stood there looking at us all pitiful, and wouldn't walk. So I had to re do the surface, texturing it first like a stucco wall. Now it sucks to sweep it.

Your dog sounds real similar. Just incredibly cautious about anything different, then because so jumpy, inevitably has a problem that make them reject anything like it from then on. Max was even more that way about food. Would not eat a milk bone. Too weird for him.

Daisy and Barry, our current pair of bernards are so different! Nothing fazes Daisy, she's as brave as any dog I ever had except for thunder, or gunshots. Barry a bit more reserved, but he can be taught to eat funny food, and has no problem with the dog door or the floor. I'm so happy watching them play with each other now that we have two. I'm so hoping they get your house done soon so you can go home and have a yard full of dogs again.

VERY good news they are insulating. That means the last big building inspection has passed. They will need a sign off on the insulation before the sheet rock, but nobody ever fails that one and has the job held up. It can still take a crapton of time to finish up, cabinets, trim, flooring, plumging fixtures. But nothing is going to stop the job now. No waiting for the sign offs. It's just cosmetic stuff left, nothing structural or mechanical left.

At this point, I bet he wants to finish soon, and get rent money flowing again. Your remodel has crossed the divide, and is on the downhill run to the end.

 

[amberwolf]

Sorry to hear that water from the sky makes you hurt so bad. The big cold front went through here yesterday, but you are still hogging the water so far. I couldn't believe my shoulders were not howling when the front went by, but I bet they will when the low gets here.

for me, it's almost any *change* in the weather...but especially pressure changes. After the weather has been the same for a while (a few days) I guess I get used to it enough to deal with it, but during the change it's sometimes so bad I can't actually get up and *do* anything useful. Just the getting out of bed part is hard (cuz even just laying there is bad enough). Gets worse every year, too, but I guess my tolerance gets better...but not as fast.

Terrible thing is I LOVE the rain and storms...and I even like riding in them, cuz the world is quieter then. But the cold and stuff hurts enough now that I can't really even fake-pedal when it's like this, much less *actually move myself* by pedalling, for more than a few seconds at a time. I still try to keep my legs moving but sometimes I just can't do it, and it's even hard to put a foot down at a stop so I don't fall over. :lol:

Our first Bernard, Max, never got the hang of the dog door. He was always scared of it, it was just too weird for him going through the flap. He also had a great bit of difficulty with uncarpeted surfaces. When we went to concrete floor, he just stood there looking at us all pitiful, and wouldn't walk. So I had to re do the surface, texturing it first like a stucco wall. Now it sucks to sweep it.

Loki was like that when I first got him--he had never been inside a house before in however many years he'd been around (a few, at least), and had no idea how to deal with tile (plastic). I had to guide him across it at first, and even then he wanted nothing to do with it...but he figured it out eventually, though he was never exactly comfortable with anything but dirt, grass, or blankets.

Tiny doesn't have aproblem with tile (ceramic, in the apt) or any other *solid* surface, but she doesnt' really like the gravel much--which is a bit odd cuz that's what they had at the rescue place for the side yard (grass in the back), and she'd been there for 5 years or so. So you'd think she'd be used to it by then. I guess "used to" and "liking" are different for her, too. :lol: We'll see how she does in my yard once we get to go back to it after the stuff is cleared out of it enough for her to run around, and I get a chance to take her in the trailer there again (after I get a new tire for it since I had to move one of it's tires to the bike).

Your dog sounds real similar. Just incredibly cautious about anything different, then because so jumpy, inevitably has a problem that make them reject anything like it from then on. Max was even more that way about food. Would not eat a milk bone. Too weird for him.

Tiny doesn't seem to have much of a problem with texture or shape...just flavor. If she doesnt' like something, she makes SUCH a face when spitting it out...I keep trying to catch it on camera but it'll have to wait till I have a *real* camera, cuz these phone cameras simply take too long (up to several seconds!) to respond to pressing the "take a damn picture now!" button.

But she is shy about some new things for sure--especially things that look strange or scary (and I think she doesn't really see all that well, either, cuz of how she reacts to some things, and that she has to actually sniff any high-contrasting-color spot or item she sees on the ground to find out what it is). Shopping bags wiggling around on the ground freak her out pretty good most of the time, despite how many thousands of them she must've seen just in the last few months (not to mention the rest of her life before that). I would LOVe to catch on video her reaction to one especially when she walks up to sniff it, but I have to wait for a real camera to do that. Cameraphones simply don't work fast enough or well enough to get it in time or where you can see what's happening.

Daisy and Barry, our current pair of bernards are so different! Nothing fazes Daisy, she's as brave as any dog I ever had except for thunder, or gunshots. Barry a bit more reserved, but he can be taught to eat funny food, and has no problem with the dog door or the floor. I'm so happy watching them play with each other now that we have two. I'm so hoping they get your house done soon so you can go home and have a yard full of dogs again.

Me, too! And then I can see how she does on the doggie door thing. The landlord said he was going to install one, but if he doesn't remember to, I still have (well, if the looters didn't steal it from the shed) that RFID automatic doggie door.

VERY good news they are insulating. That means the last big building inspection has passed. They will need a sign off on the insulation before the sheet rock, but nobody ever fails that one and has the job held up. It can still take a crapton of time to finish up, cabinets, trim, flooring, plumging fixtures. But nothing is going to stop the job now. No waiting for the sign offs. It's just cosmetic stuff left, nothing structural or mechanical left.

At this point, I bet he wants to finish soon, and get rent money flowing again. Your remodel has crossed the divide, and is on the downhill run to the end.

Oh, I really hope so. Rent money he doesn't have to worry about since his insurnace pays rent until the repairs are done. So unfortunately he doesnt' have that incentive to finish faster. But I really hope it's done soon, cuz after December I have to do month-to-month and that will probably cost me as much as the house rent just to rent this itty bitty little apartment that I really don't like very much.

 

[amberwolf]

Rant:

The last few days have been...interesting. In the chinese-curse way.

Being retail's busy season, there's lots more traffic on the road, and most of them appear not to drive much, at least not in this kind of heavy traffic--so they don't pay much attention to each other and all sorts of stupid collisions and near-collisions have happened all over the place--many of them in parking lots caused by idiots too impatient to wait for someone else to go past, finish pulling in or out of a space, etc., or too poor to pay attention and look around first before going thru. Some of the collisions are pedestrian-pedestrian, some pedestrian-car, but most are car-car. Haven't seen any obviously fatal ones yet, but quite a few had mulitple ambulances and other emergency vehicles.

So far, I've managed to avoid all the idiots trying to involve *me* in one of these collisions, but it's been close a few times.

The most common one I have to avoid is pedestrians just walking right out in front of me, right off the sidewalk or from between cars parked along the side of the road (usually in no-parking zones, i guess cuz they can't be bothered to navigate the parking lots, or use their driveways, much more often than the rest of the year). Two nights ago I was riding down 31st Ave south of Bethany Home, on the wya home form work, and was approaching a single truck parked along the sidewalk, in the parking lane between that and the bike lane. I could see two men talking on it's right side, with a door open, and both looked at me (hard not to notice me with all the lights on CrazyBike2) but just a glance then went back to talking, then one of htem walked around the back of his truck (towards me) then around it's left side (on my side of the truck now) facing away from me, at the moment I was passing the truck. If I had not already been watching both of them because people do that sor tof thing frequently, I would have hit him. Instead, I was able to slighly swerve left into the regular car lane and avoid him.

The stupid thing: He turns as I pass, with a shocked look on his face, realizing he'd almost been run over, as if he had no idea I was coming--when just a few seconds before that he had been looking right at me with his companion! So...quite a few people are stupid, and don't pay any attention to what's right in front of them even when staring straight at it, actually looking at it. No comprehension of future events, consequences, etc.

If I'd been a typical car driver, and the bike lane wasn't there, he'd probably be dead, cuz they don't usually leave much clearance around the parked cars when they aren't forced to, and I know they don't generally pay much attention to pedestrians stepping out like that, unlike me.


Anyway, that's just one of many such incidents, some of which directly invovled me, but most of which I saw as I rode past other people--some of which happened as I went past, but most of which had obviously happened some time earlier.


Yesterday morning, I finally made it to the post office to get hte halls & caps package from almost a month ago that never got delivered to me, and when leaving trying to turn left across camelback to continue to work, I found myself first wiating for an idiot trying to be helpful that just sat there blocking the righthand lane of eastbound traffic, but of course since the lefthand lane just roars past him it did nothing for me except prevent me from seeing any of that passing traffic, or anything else behind his van, which blocked all view of the street and kept backing up more traffic behind him, for over a minute. If he hadn't stopped there would ahve been a gap I could've crossed in there somewhere....Eventually he continued on, but now the traffic pattern was messed up cuz of the backup, and being so close to the 27th Ave interseciton and traffic lights meant traffic piled up way past the exit I was trying to use, blocking me completely for another couple of minutes.


Just as I was about to be able to go, another helpful idiot pulls up to my left (when I'm already pretty far left in the exit, signalling my blinking left turn), and says he's gonna block the lanes for me. So as soon as it would have been free enough for me to cross in a moment anywya, he pulls out across the lanes and stops...well, I might as well go while hes there sinc eno wtraffic *cant* go around him, so I go and start to go itno the cneter lane so I can turn right across the three lanes of westbound traffic to get to the righthand lane where I need to be. As soon as I turn into that center lane, he pulls forward and *right* instead of left, and almost runs me over, so I am forced to go into the not-empty lane to my right, forcing the oncoming car to swerve around me to *my* right, and then I was able to cross the other empty lanes to get where I needed. But if the idiots just got the frack out of my way and stopped trying to "help", and then trying to run me over instead of watchign where they are going, I could do just fine on my own.

Next time I think I am just going to wait until al lthe helpful idiots go away and cross on my own when I *Know* the situation is controllable and safe.




At work: too many stupid things to list, most of them customer-related. Plus a friend/manager got in a serious car wreck on the freeway due to another idiot driver (who fled the scene, of course), and was just released from the hospital; is sort of walking around now, but is not in good shape. Another got pneumonia, and is slowly healing from that. (I lost a good friedn to that about ten years ago, in just hours she went from flu-like symptoms to dead, despite all the ER could do).


A customer came in whiel I wasn't there some days back, and told my boss she looked like his ex wife, and asked her if he could punch her in the face. Just like that--no reason, just walked up and said that to her. He didn't acutally punch her, but he *said* it, and I just can't comprehend a normal human being actually behaving like that.


At the apartments...not only do they refuse to unlock the two "outer" street-facing pedestrian gates, one of the employees actually accused me of constantly breaking the gates...he backpedalled when I glared at him and then said "they" instead of "you", but the thing is that anyone at the complex has a key to the gates and has no reason to be breaking the gates to unlock them. The damage is becuase of people breaking into the complex, and so of course the management is punishing the residents instead of fixing the gates in a harder-to-break way, or providing better security patrols to catch it when it happens, or installing cameras to catch them at it so the police can do something about the individuals responsible.

I've reported a few different maintenance things (none inside my apartment, thankfully) that haven't been fixed, including lights around the complex that burn out but never get replaced (so the complex gets darker and less secure at night every week, it seems like). There are some things, like water leaks and lights in the laundry rooms, that the complex says it's not responsible for, and I'd have to call MacGray about. Since that company has already proven it doesn't give a damn about fixing anything, I don't see why I should bother. I can use a flashlight to see by, and when the water leaks destroy things in the complex buildings themselves, maybe the complex managers will get around to doing something about it. The leaks don't affect me personally--I just tried to tell them about it so they woulnd't have to spend thousands of dollars repairing water damage. Since thye don't care, I guess I shouldn't either.


They also don't do anything about the dog-owners that continue to let their little highly aggressive dogs run loose (usually in packs of two or three) instead of keeping them on-leash as required by law and the lease agreements and other apartment rules, whenever they're not in the apartment itself or the doggie park. I spoke with one of those people after her dog attempted to attack Tiny, who I held by her harness to keep any trouble from starting, and advised her that if I wasn't holding Tiny back, then she would have been justified in defending herself by making mulitple peices out of her dog--and *any* other dog could and probably would do that if attacked. If that other dog *also* wasn't on a leash, then she'd have her dog in a fight it probably couldn't win, with someone else's dog, neither of whom they could control or pull away from each other, because they're not on a leash. She just stared at me and said (again) she was sorry--but she didn't even bother picking up her dog, just let it keep running up to Tiny and barking at her. I had to get my celphone out and tell her I was going to call the apartment managment before she would pick her dog up--becuase I could not go anywhere from where I was stuck holding Tiny until she got her aggressive dog to stop and leave Tiny alone.

I don't think Tiny would actually attack it--but I don't know that for sure, and if she did, there would be whole slew of consequences neither one of us would want. This lady just does not understand, nor does she apparently care, about any of that. Ive encountered her and her dogs like thsi multiple times, and she just apologizes but neve rbothers with a leash, as required for very good reasons in the case of her dogs.


Her and the several other poeple like her here with little aggressive dogs are more reasons why I really don't want ot live here (or any other apartment complex) any longer than absolutely necessary. I really really wanna go "home", to the house, not that it is actually home anymore (I dont' feel like I *have* a "home*, anymore, and it will probably be years before I feel like I have one again even once I am back there).

And as I am typing this, someone just walked by me on the stairs with their 30-40lb dog running loose, which went chasing after a terrified little girl about maybe 3 years old, who fell on her face and skinned herself up good on the rocks, while the guy that apparently owns the dog calls down to it from the balcony, instead of rushing downstairs to actually catch it--so it's still just running around loose, while the parent of the kid patches her up and yells at the guy to "get his damned dog" (which is now running off in the parking lot chasing someone else).


Then there are the multiple people with their doors open, blasting their stereos (thankfully none with big subwoofers so far) loud enough to be heard thru the whole complex. The only good thing about that is that if I shut the windows and have the "curtains" up over them (heavy blankets I have hung on them with screwdrivers in the top slots of the quite-insufficient "blinds", almost all of the sonic attack is kept out of the apartment itself. Running a box fan on low is enough to drown out the rest. But not when I'm out here on the stairs trying to get wifi.... (we'll just leave the whole clouds of ciggarette smoke and less-legal stuff that i have to breathe out here to use the wifi out of the equation).


The garbage that's simply thrown on the ground instead of into the multiple mostly-empty disposal containers...that's another thing. If the people around here live in their places liek they do outside of them, they must have piles of rotting garbage up to the cieling. People jsut get out of their cars and toss all the stuff on the ground--fast food containers, leftovers, shopping bags, assorted beer bottles, cans, cigarrette packages, ashtray contents, etc. They don't give a damn aobut what it looks like where thye live--and the complex's groundskeepers don't have enough hours in the day to get it all, so it's always blowing around. Beer bottles are found smashed pretty mcuh everywhere, and sometimes that never gets cleaned up. So there are palces I simply can't even take Tiny for walks now, cuz there's so much broken glass that even with the pawtectors some of it has too good a chance to cut thru and injure her. Might even be able to cut thru my army boots--certainly thru my regular shoes, eventually.

Cigarette butts everywhere. And since Tiny has taken to snatching those up and swallowing them before I can even finish saying "leave it" or "drop it", there are some places I can't let her sniff the ground at all, cuz she'll get at least one.


Then there's the cat poo...there must be 40-50 cats running wild around the complex...I like cats fine, but since they are all loose and not pets, they just pee and poo everywhere, and that doesnt' get cleaned up unless it's on a sidewalk or around the pool areas. (which tend to be locked more than not, chained off so residents can't even use the pools, because someone keeps having beer parties there and leaving the bottles everywhere, broken and not, even in the pool, despite the rules, or common courtesy).


Then there's the parents that just let their kids run around and do whatever they want---including painting up or otherwise defacing the buildings, sidewalks, etc., and throwing rocks at things, someitmes breaking windows. I think *all* of the fire extinguisher holders have their glass broken out by now, form that. A few of the actual extinguishers are missing, too. Most of these kids are not even old enough to be unsupervised--some cant' even walk unassisted. Someitme sthe parents will loudly yell at the kids to come inside, but they don't do anything about it when the kids don't listen.


When I moved in, there was very little of any of the above--so it is mostly newer residents doing all this stuff, I would guess.

Even if I didn't have a house I'd be moving back into, I would be looking for a new place when my lease is up anyway, given the wya this place has gone.

 

[The fingers]

I wear yellow and orange reflective insulated highway workers gloves to direct traffic from the saddle. (Road kill :wink: )
When I walk Oliver I carry an axe handle secured to my wrist with some very heavy cord to whack the brains out of any aggressive dog or coyote (human too) stupid enough to mess around with us. I carry it under my arm so as not to frighten anyone unnecessarily.
With all the psychos roaming the streets these days along with those just frustratingly stupid or with malicious intent, we're bound to encounter them walking, driving, wandering into stores, and at work.
At least I haven't come across one crazier than myself riding a bicycle yet.
Bicycles instead of medical mental intervention for therapy? Works for me! :lol:
Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[amberwolf]

So far I haven't had to actually do anything but stand between Tiny and other dogs, cuz they're all pretty small, and if I actually absolutely *had* to do something actively to get them away from her, I could probably punt any of them a few yards, even with my bad joints, as much as I would hate to do it. :/

I have a cane with a big brass handgrip that I sometimes have to use while walking on my own, when things get really bad in winter (not *quite* there yet right now), but I don't think I could practically walk with it while walking Tiny, at least not yet--she still sometimes does pull away from me to investigate a smell, though she stops before really yanking on the leash, once she feels she's reached the end of it. But that little pull would be enough to knock me over if I was depending on the cane to hold me up at some point, if the pull was in the wrong direction. Sometimes it almost is even just on my own two legs, when I'm unsteady enough. But I could carry the cane around anyway, just in case, and it most certainly would be a deterrent to poeple that recognized what it might do to them, though animals have no clue about stuff like that usually, unfortunately, until you actually have to swing it at them (at which point they usually get the idea even without hitting them).





As for Thanksgiving--it feels strange given all that's happened to me, but I have to say I am actually very thankful this year:

--that I had the chance to know Hachi and Nana and Loki and Fred for as long as I did, or at all--especially in Hachi's case. I miss her and the rest terribly (am crying again as I write this) but I think that if I hadn't had Nana here then she probably would have died at the pound before the puppies ever even got big enough to show she was pregnant, and Hachi would never have even been born, much less had the life of giving happiness that she did.

--that I now have Tiny, and can give her the every-day life and companionship she hasn't ever really had in her seven years before that--and that she can give *me* smiles and laughs and snuggles when I can't handle life on my own (which is still just about every night or day at some point).

--that I am still around to be able to help her (and others once i have the house back)

--that I will be able to move back into the house, evne if it won't be home for a long time after, yet.

--that I have so many friends and acuaintances that have given so much of their time and money to help me thru this whole thing, including all of those at my workplace that have helped and tolerated so much from me until I began to recover (I can't imagine any other place I've worked being like that).

--that despite all I've lost, I still have so much left that is important to me.

--that i have been able to see which of my friends really *are* my friends, and I could trust, and which were just people I happened to think I knew.

--that I have been able to grow from this experience, and those that followed it, instead of any of the alternatives I'd thought were certain at the time.

--and for all of the other things I may have forgotten to list.



Regarding the actual day/dinner itself: The Tuesday of T-day week, we had a potluck at work, which was quite a feast with everything people brought, most of it homemade instead of storebought. I managed to get my apartment's mini-oven (with no markings on any of the knobs ) to get close enough to the right temperature to make my cornbread, at least--or something close enough to be fairly good, if not quite right. I didn't even bother trying to make my peach cobbler, though, cuz if the temperature isn't just right on that one, the crust either burns or turns to goo, while the inside isn't cooked right either.


Several days before turkey-day, I tried to invite a number of friends out to Thanksgiving for a gathering during some mealtime the actual day, since I was off work, but only Mark accepted. A few already had accepted invitations from others, some of them well in advance, or were out of town still, but others just kinda were wishy-washy, or made something up on the spot so they wouldnt' have to go. But I had a nice conversational dinner with Mark, at least; even if I couldn't get anyone else to come with us. (Not surprisingly, I didn't get any invitations from anyone else, except for one person, *after* I'd asked that person that had accepted someone else's already, who then called me back a while later to say I was also welcome to come, but I'd already set up with Mark well before that).




On the moving-back-in front, I'm still waiting on the house repairs. The best I have gotten from the landlord is "it's gonna be close", when I reminded him that my apartment lease is up at hte end of December, and asked him if the house would be ready to move back into by then. I also asked after that if at least one room might be ready, so I could live in that while the rest of the house is being finished, but so far there's been no reply to that.


I've already started the cleaning-up and packing process, of packing up anything I don't think I will be using between now and the end of the year. Trying to make sure I have enough boxes for it all--I should, since I still have all the ones I used to move it to the apartment in the first place, but I have acquired a few things since then, and not sure if I have boxes enough for all of that yet. Will start saving them from our next load at work, but if the bike/trailer isn't fixed up by then (see: http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12500&p=827943#p827313 ) will have to probably have Bill help me get the boxes to the apartment on one of our lunch days.

 

[amberwolf]

Bike frame is fixed...now just have to get another tire for the trailer (or the bike), to be able to haul the boxes. And fix the rear motor.

Nothing new on the house or anything else.

 

[amberwolf]

"all i lost for christmas was my three front teeth...three front teeth..."

At least, I hope it's all. :/

Cuz it basically cost me a month's rent (for the house, not hte apartment), about $780 between the tooth pullings and the meds.

View attachment 5

Late-ish Sunday afternoon, the tooth (just to the left of the top right canine, #7 on dental charts) I broke off at the gumline a while back began giving me trouble again (well, it had started to occasionally ache a little earlier that day, but didnt' get bad till after I got back from lunch/etc with Bill). By late evening, my upper lip had begun to puff up inside, from the beginnings of an abcess. I went out to sit on teh steps for wifi to look up dental places, but nowhere was open still when i called around, earliest would be Monday morning. Since by that time (full night) my cheek was beginning to puff, too, it was pretty bad. Tooth was also throbbing but not uncontrollably, and the two either side of it were aching too. thru the night, 1000mg of acetominophen every 6 hours was the best I could do, with 400mg of ibuprofen in between those when it got beyond my ability to deal with.

So...I left messages with as many places as I could asking for prices, and Monday got calls back (and made ohters to places that had no message machine or service), prices ranging from $20 to over $100 for just the exam to see what needed to be done, and prices from $90/tooth for simple extraction, not including any meds or anesthetics, up to over $500/tooth. Some places sounded so rude when I asked questions, or skirted around actually answering them, that I crossed them off the list as untrustable despite sometimes cheaper prices. Some of them and some of the others had no exam openings for a week or more, and I was pretty sure I'd be really really sick long before then.

Eventually I settled on the most courteous, most professional place I talked to, that had average prices (under $250/tooth) and a free full exam and xrays: Aspen Dental. One other reason I picked them is because they are less than half a mile from my workplace, just west of it on Peoria. But since I had to go to work Monday anyway, I stopped by there on the way to check them out, and they were a well-run place, with courtesy and helpfulness towards everyone I saw there, and towards each other and on the phone, including the dentist that I saw talking to someone in the area behind the office-receptionist area in front. So I signed up for the first exam slot they ahd available, which unfortunatley was Tuesday at 1pm--the next day, *and* right when I was scheduled to start my shift at work that day.


I got in to work (Monday) and discussed it with managment, and they had no problem with covering whatever part of my shift I'd be missing, but I couldn't know how long it might take for sure, since I'd have to go get the first pain meds and the antibiotics before going in to work, but after the exam, cuz all the places would be closed by the time I got off work that night (about 10pm). I ended up losing about half my shift, most of it waiting for the pharmacy to prep the meds (penicillin for the infection, and 800mg ibuprofen for swelling and pain), so there's another $30-ish gone.


As usual, cuz of my horrendous gag reflex, I gave them lots of trouble trying to get the xrays, cuz they ahve to stick this little sensor pad into place all around the inside of the mouth, and pretty much everywhere it had to go would cause me to gag and try to retch. Eventually we got it done, but I don't think they've ever encountered anybody with as severe a reflex as mine.


It came down to really needing all three of those teeth pulled, which means I no longer have any of my top front teeth, except the left canine. On a positive note, I won't be biting my fingernails anymore.




So...I really hate having to have people poke around at me or in my mouth, handle me, etc.--it's just REALLY disturbing....so the exam was bad enough, but of course the actual pulling I knew would be worse. Thankfully, it wasn't--these people know what they're doing, and except for the pain of the novocaine (or whatever) needles going in, it was completely painless, though of course the intense pushing and pulling was highly disturbing, and made me want ot get up and run away. I had to force myself to stay in teh chair and keep my mouth open and eyes closed, and it was very hard. Not as hard as several years ago when I had to have the left inscisor and tooth next to it pulled, but those people were not very good at it, and didn't have as good an insturment or chair or lighting setup, and didn't realy seem to care much about how I felt about it, unlike the poeple this time at Aspen, who made me feel comfortable about it all, as much as possible.

Anyway, it didnt' take long to actually do--I think the prep and paperwork took twice as long as the procedure. The worst part was that the pharmacy took so very long to get my pain meds (vicodin) that the novicaine was wearing off already, and I was haivng to push hard on the side of my jaw to keep it numb (where some of the nerves and blood vessls are, I thinK), and even then it was throbbing and pulsing, and I was rocking back and forth in the chair like a full-on autistic in basket-case mode, just trrying to distract myself. Eventually, the phone rang, and it was the pharmacy's computer telling me the meds were ready...even though I was RIGHT there in a chair about 10 feet in front of the window, where the same lady that had taken my prescription slip was also doing hte outgoing stuff, and she knew I was there just to ge thtose meds before the novocaine wore off...yet by the time the computer had called me, the stuff she'd put in teh basket had been there for several minutes--just before the pain started, in earnest. So if she had been doing things "right", and paying attention, I wouldn't have had to live thru as much of that pain...since it took another several minutes for any of it to take effect after I finally was able to pick i tup and take some.


Pain in general I am used to--I hurt all the time all over anyway, from my joints and other owies, and some of it's pretty bad this season (cold, humid, pressure changes, stress, etc). But TOOTH PAIN, especially from just having had three yanked out, is MUCH WORSE than that--and it is IN MY HEAD where I can't get away from it with my usual tricks. At least, not unless I can be alone in a very quiet place to focus on a variation of a trick I actually learned from "Saavik" in one of the Star Trek novelizations, I think by Vonda McIntyre. Probably ST:III.

Anyway, I'm just complaining, now. :/


Good news was that Fry's had a sale $1/can for cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soups, both of which I really like but cost too much to ever get normally, at $1.60/can. And a sale on premade canned biscuits.

View attachment 1

So I can have chicken and dumpling soup, for instance, ro jsut the mushroom soup, both of which I will be eating for at least several days this week until the tooth socket holes are closed up enough to let me chew things. Maybe all the way into next week, and possibly more. I was advised that given the number of them in a row and where they are, it might be earlyish next year before I will be on normal food again. So much for my hankering for bacon.



In other bad news, I'm pretty sure the house won't be ready till at least end of January 2014, now, after visiting it today and finding this sign insde the house (presumably for the workers, since the landlord certainly hasn't told *me* about it...last I had heard, it was "gonna be close" on me getting to move back in THIS MONTH (December 2013). Obviously not gonna happen now, based on that, though I have yet to hear anything different).
View attachment 3

So now I'm even more depressed than I was, cuz my lease is up here at the apartment in 20 days, and I don't have anywhere else I can go with Tiny. I can go back to Bill's, myself, but Tiny can't go, and I can't go without her, even if she had another place to stay, so....

I can't sign anohter lease, cuz the shortest one is 6 months. I can't move to another apartment complex for the same reason, in addtion to it being unlikely that any of the places that coudl take me and Tiny but that had no open apartments when i was first looking, having open ones now.


So...hopefully this complex will let me just stay here another month without some sort of exorbitant fees or something. And hopefully the house will be ready by the time January is up, (before, actually, so I have time to actually do the move). If it's not, then I'll be stuck here ANOTHER month, even if the house is ready, unless the landlord will let me live there the first month rent-free, cuz otherwise I'd be paying rent at both places. And utilities, too, since even if I wasn't staying at the apartment at all or using any water or electricity/etc., I'd still get blled for it just as if i was cuz they bill by signed up residents and square footage for each apartment.


I guess that's enough griping for now.

 

[The Stig]

I think this deserves its own thread!

 

[marty]

Make new teeth with a 3d printer?
World Domination, I just got my self a 3d Printer!!!

 

[amberwolf]

Tempting....

I know the process for making dentures already, having made stuff to go over teeth for costume work before, though at the time I used Friendly Plastic for the teeth-things, and have not done molding directly for gums instead. But making the negative molds out of alginate, to then cast a positive of my own teeth (or gums/etc) to then do molding and sculpting of other materials to fit over (or to make molds of to cast things to fit over)...that's easy enough, if quite time consuming.

If I could do the casting of the base part to get something to be scanned in to a computer, then send that file to someone with a 3d printer to make me the partials from....that would save a lot of manual work.

I just need someone locally with a 3D scanner of sufficient resolution, since alginate dries up quickly (destroying the mold), and saving the step of casting a harder positive from the softer negative alginate would save significant cost of materials and time.




For now, at least, I am able to chew softer "hard foods" on the left side of the back teeth, if I'm careful not to let bits end up over on the front top gums (especially where the canine was), cuz that is still quite tender. I'm trying not to take any pain meds for them until it's beyond uncomfortable, since I only got 20 vicodin and there's only 16 left--if I save them then they'll be there for later if I really need them for some severe pain. So for now, if it's just a dull ache I'll tolerate it, and take either regular ibuprofen or acetominophen to deal with it if it's either more than I can ignore or if I'm trying to sleep and it's keeping me up. These days I'm used to pain enough from joints and whatnot that I can ignore a lot of other aches I didn't used to be able to.

But I'll telll you what: when I took the first vicodin for the tooth pain right after the extractions, once it took general effect, I felt so little pain anywhere in my whole body that I wished I could just get a lifetime supply of the stuff. One doesn't realize how much pain there really is until it's not there anymore, once it's been there long enough! It's so tempting to just keep taking the remaining vicodin until they're gone, to have some pain free days, maybe a week, that I have to actively fight the temptation at every step while I'm at work, and while trying to go to sleep at night, most especially.

I can definitely understand people who become addicted to drugs--if the feelings they get are stronger than my relief when the pain's gone, I can see how they might not be able to resist. I *barely* can--and then only because I know I can't just go get more. If I could just go get it, I might well learn to spend far beyond my means to keep getting it, for that relief.


The bad part about it--it makes me muzzy, thoughts unclear and confuzzled some, hard to concentrate (even more so than with the usual aches and pains, though not as bad as with a toothache, by far). So...even being pain free I'd end up accomplishing much less, most likely. Certainly not able to think about things very well for very long at a time.

 

[amberwolf]

Speaking of not thinking well...I forgot to mention that today was Tiny's vet re-check, for blood and urine sample collection to verify that her UTI is finally gone (seems to be, but will take "a couple of days" for those results), and that her blood levels of PB for the seizures are where they should be. The latter results were supposed to be ready in half an hour or so after we left, but that was about four hours ago and haven't heard anything yet, of course. (since this is the same vet, Alta Vista AH, that took WEEKS to get the UTI test results back the first time, months ago, it's not surprising).

They also suggested that since Tiny sometimes still has puddly oopsies while she's sleeping, sometimes large and sometimes small, she should start on another med designed to constrict the urinary sphincter muscles, so she doesn't "leak". If it were only a matter of convenience, in whether or not I have to clean up a mess, I wouldn't care, and would not put her on yet another med. But apparently if she has that kind of issue, then it could also be why she gets UTIs in the first place, with bacteria able to much more easily get from outside up into the UT/bladder. So most likely she'll end up on another daily med.

Otherwise, Tiny seems to be doing fine.


Also, in much much sadder news, Marty the previously-abused-but-getting-much-better St Bernard, has died of a sudden heart attack. Poor big guy just couldn't catch a break.
http://www.adoptapet.com/pet/9478116-glendale-arizona-st-bernard
I had hoped I might be able to foster him once i'd gotten back to the house...give him a home like he'd never been able to have. Of course, I'd like to give them ALL a home, but some of them *really* need a special place not many could give, and I know that's one thing I *can* do.


Now...there's these two:

Tabitha and Samantha, who are a bonded pair that have to go to the same home, and are both older--Tabitha is 5 and Samantha is 7, like Tiny is. Both of them are good with kids, etc., but don't necessarily care to interact with all the adults they meet. Dunno about how they and Tiny might interact. But if they don't get a home before I'm back at the house, and settled in with Tiny, I would like to meet them and see how we all get along.


There's also Bubba, who I posted about when I first went to see them all, and first met Tiny. Bubba's run was next to Tiny's, so they know each other, although whether Tiny would actively be ok with Bubba unattended has yet to be determined. Bubba's a lot more active (and younger) than Tiny, so he could use the big yard, too.




In yet other news, Tiny is now extremely frustrated, cuz they just dumped more big pointy rocks around the complex, finally covering all of the dirt and grass areas completely, so now we can't go for walks where she used to. Also, no one is supposed to go on the rocks at all--it's supposed to be areas to just look at, not to use for anything, which is a huge stupid waste of space.


So, no more shaded walks, at all, unless we walk in the oil and crap from cars, under the parking awnings, cuz all the tree-shaded dirt/grass areas they'd left are now gravel-covered, with the pointy one-quarter to one-half fist-sized rocks that are treacherous to walk on for either of us, since neither of us can keep from stumbling and slipping on them, and they also cut her feet up in between the pads, where a dog's feet aren't any tougher than normal skin.

The latter I can prevent with those pink PawTectors, but I can't do anything about the former--so we now can only walk on the yucky asphalt of hte parking lot. There aren't any sidewalks except inside the individual building sections of the complex, so even if we only walked in those, we can't get from one to another without walking on the asphalt.

The problem with that is that the black asphalt gets far too hot to do that in anything except the late fall, winter, and early spring. Not a particular problem for us, because we won't be here when it does get hot again, but for any other dogs that come here or are still here, having only the hot asphalt to walk on during the day. A short walk from any of hte buildings to the doggie park isn't *too* bad, but if like Tiny they need to walk more than just in a little area like that, then they either have to have shoes of some sort, or risk burns to their paws from the asphalt, which gets hot enough to stick in bits and chunks to feet and shoes and paws, in the middle of summer, here.


Then there's another problem: we cant' use the park anymore either. They put gravel all the way up to the path to the gates, too, so the risk of either her or me losing our footing and getting hurt is too great, and we can't even get into the doggie park now, especially since I frequently have to depend on the cane for footing, and it's already hard enough to balance everything with Tiny sometimes tugging accidentally on the leash cuz she is excited to get into or out of the park gate. It's just an accident waiting to happen if we try to cross even that small amount of those rocks. I've fallen often enough by myself just going around the bike when trying to get it inside when I get home, since sometimes I have it blocking too much of the sidewalk and end up stepping in the rocks in front of my apartment to get to the sidewalk in front of the door. If I did that while trying to control her, she could get scared of me falling next to or on top of her, and either get hurt or run off and I could lose grip on her leash, and she could run out just when a car passes and get hit, since poeple don't pay much attention to anything in front of htem even in a parking lot like this.

Simply not something I'm willing to risk.


I'd already brought up that problem to them before, when they did that to the southwest end of hte park entrance, and they just ignored me, so I don't see the point of bringing it up again now that they've finished the job and made the park inaccessible to us completely by covering the path to the only remaining entrance.


So, now Tiny only gets to walk on the asphalt parking lot, with us trying to stay out of the way of cars going past (which scare her often enough), and in the sidewalk areas of the building areas.


I really hope we get to go back to the house in the next two weeks, cuz it's gonna suck bad enough if it's only that long. If we have to be here another month after that, I dunno if we can handle it very well.

 

[amberwolf]

Heard back about hte house and it will probably be mid-january before I can move back in. So...Bill and his sister will let me stay there in the loft, with Tiny out in the backyard (not allowed in the house due to allergies). There's a spot between house and shed that can be "fenced off" for her, and I have a doghouse at the house that can be moved over. So I have an option other than dealing with this apartment complex any longer than the end of my lease at the end of this month. I still have to go talk to them at the office today (or tomorrow, if they're not available today) to find out exactly what would be involved in just staying here until the house is ready assuming it's mid-January...but I suspect I'd end up having to pay for the whole month even if I only was here part of it, utilities included, which would be a big waste of money.


So it is pretty likely I will be up at Bill's again between Christmas and whenever I get back into the house. Either way we'll probably start moving stuff from the apartment to his place soon, anything I don't absolutely *need* to have access to for the next couple of weeks--that should be one of the two truckloads of stuff to move. Then everything else can go on the day I move out.


Man, this is really a complicated mess.






Tiny has decided she doesn't like walks anymore, cuz we can't explore her familiar spots and paths anymore. She's eager enough to go out each time, when we start, but as soon as she can't get into the park or any of the other now-rock-covered areas, she just sags and isn't all that interested anymore. There is one last ~15x15 foot area by the very northeast corner of the complex parking lot that is still dirt for now, so we head for that, but she almost always just stops in the middle of the parking lot somewhere and pees way before we get there, and usually poos before getting there, too. Sometimes she'll make it al lthe way there and pee in the dirt, but she won't poo there, and then does that on our way back.

(there is one more much larger area, almost the size of the doggie park, that even has a couple of scraggly trees and some grass and dirt, that is only 1/2 covered in rocks so far, but there's broken glass scattered all thru that area, so we can't safely use it any better than the rocky areas. Some of that glass is really small pieces, but a lot of it is large shards, some from CRTs and bottoms and lips of bottles, so it's thick and doesn't break underfoot but instead cuts thru things like shoes and pawtectors and feet and paws. There is far too much of it for me to be able to pick it all up and every time I have gone past it there is more, cuz it seems to be a hangout area for people that shouldn't be in the complex (non-residents) in the wee hours of the night/morning, past midnight before dawn, since they turned off all the lighting at that end of the complex's parking lot some weeks ago).



She doesn't want to walk the sidewalk areas of the complex anymore, either, and that part I don't quite understand. She does walk them if I lead her around them, but she keeps turning around and wanting to go the other way, unless we're headed directly for the apartment. She keeps wanting to just follow her outbound path right back to the apartment itself, especially at night.

So now she isn't getting much more than 20 minutes of walking a day, 30 at the most, before she decides she's done with it and wants to go "home". On my days off like yesterday and today I can take her out for much more, cuz it's about 10 minutes, per walkies, and I can go out eveyr couple hours or so with her. But on workdays, if she keeps this up, she's only going to get the one when I come home and a couple in the morning before I have to leave for work.


So I guess it's good that we won't be here much longer anyway, since apparently she doesn't like it here anymore either.