January 7
These are the things going on in my life right now. Prepare to be underwhelmed:
I took my older dog, Jessie (see above), to the vet last night for the first time since 1998. Before you go all calling animal welfare on me, remember that somewhere between 1998 and now, Grayson had a cancerous growth removed from her paw, which cost us roughly one BILLION dollars in vet bills for surgery and chemotherapy, and went on for about 9 months. Nine MONTHS of taking a shedding, skittish, stink making dog to and from vets and animal hospitals in an entirely black cloth interior vehicle.
So, Jessie is older and a little grumpier and less tolerant of other dogs than Grayson, and the last time we brought him to the vet (I wrote about this, and if you were a true stalker of mine, you'd remember) he went after a giant snarling dog being walked past us, DESPITE the fact that we'd warned the walker that he wasn't friendly and to keep her dog on a short leash. Long story short, she couldn't hold on to her own animal, and it knocked her down. When she collected herself, she was all pissed off at US because HER DOG KNOCKED HER DOWN. I remember my answer as being something like "Well, maybe you'd better learn how to hold on to the fucking thing" which was not the answer she sought, I don't think. Anyhow, knowing how unfriendly he can be makes me very leery to bring him out into a situation possibly filled with dogs and cats and kids and whatnot, but I did, because I'm a responsible pet owner, and moreover, I've never been pulled down by my own dogs. What a freak that woman was.
As not to bore you with the details of the checkup, I learned that Jessie is 12, which seems enormously ancient to me. 12! If you go by the one year human=7 years dog theory, that makes him 84, which is well past the time where he should feel the need to freak out with other dogs around. However, I did find a different computation for dog years:
"Because dogs do most of their growing in the first year of life, a one-year-old dog is about the same age as an 18 to 20 year old person. A two-year-old dog is roughly the same age as a 24 year old person. For the next two years add four human years. After that, add five human years for each dog year."
With that formula in mind, I came up with him being 62. Nick, more correctly came up with 68 (I'm assuming it's correct, since I am a mathematical doofus and he is smart), which isn't at all old! I mean, he's only at the plaid pants and yellow cardigan, move to Florida stage in his life. He needs a giant white car to drive very slowly in. He needs white shoes and a hearing aid. 68 seems much younger than 84 (heh, perhaps because it IS much younger than 84).
I also found out that he needs to have a tooth pulled, a thing removed from his head and has an eye infection. The eye infection wasn't a surprise--a red, runny eye is why I finally sucked it up and brought him to the vet. The tooth pulling (and cleaning, thank jesus--hopefully it'll improve his vile breath) and thing removal has to be done at the animal hospital, which I am extremely unhappy about, because an unfriendly dog in a cage next to dozens of other barking dogs is a bad time for everyong, and I can only imagine that he's going to have to spend a lot of time with the muzzle on. Poor old Jessie.
And speaking of older things in my life: it's my grandmother's turn for a little surgery (of course, I am not comparing my beloved grandmother to my beloved dog). She needs cataract surgery, badly, since about the time Angelo had the tumor removed. She's been putting it off because, well, how can she take care of Angelo AND take care of herself? I mean, she's the one who deals with all of his meds and putting the drops in HIS eyes from HIS cataract surgery. She also does the shopping, the laundry and most of the cleaning in the house, so it stands to reason that if she's out of commission, not only will no one be able to take care of HER, no one will be able to take care of Angelo.
I've been harrassing her about it for a while, too, because it's obvious that her sight is getting worse. We were at the casino a few weeks ago (a shock, I'm sure!) and I noticed that she needed to take her glasses off to read the slot machine. THE SLOT MACHINE, folks. The brightest machine ever, and she can't see it. That's bad. Finally, over the break, my mother and aunt wore her down, and she made the appointment to see the (in my opinion) nasty cocksucker eye guy. Truthfully, though, I don't so much care about his personality, as long as he does a good job, which he did for Angelo.
I'm going over to Nicole's house for dinner tonight, and we're watching Gigli, continuing the tradition of her and I seeing horrible movies with questionable lead actresses. (To date, we've seen Crossroads*, Glitter, Maid in Manhattan, Swept Away, and Evita).
*I didn't think Crossroads was really HORRIBLE. Definitely not very good, but not horrible. Out of those, Swept Away was by far the worst. Ever. Maybe even the worst movie I've ever seen. Which leads me to my mini-rant about Madonna, which will infuriate Nicole, but I'm not positive she reads me all that religiously anymore. Madonna is no longer culturally relevant. When she rapped, rhyming "pilates" and "latte"--nay, when she rapped ANYTHING, that's when it stopped. Not even an injection of Britney could save her falling star. Good thing she's still got a ton of money, because I see people 20 and 15 years younger than me being very much like "Madonna WHO?" the same way people 10 years younger than me are like "A Flock of WHAT?"
I was at Target a couple weeks ago, and came across a copy of the Ben Stiller Show on DVD. Now, I remember 1991, and I remember thinking that the BSS was absolutely hilarious. When I got it home, and sat down, all jazzed to watch it, I realized that The Ben Stiller Show is also no longer culturally relevant. His humor is very stuck in 1991, which doesn't so much carry over to 2004, which leads me to think that perhaps in 1991, I spent a lot of my time stoned, because I can't see any other reason for remembering it to be so funny.
Any show where I find Andy Dick the best thing can not be such a good show. At all.
the other day - home - email - soon