Scooter & Gracie ...

seem to be enjoying a frolic in the new snow. But the rest of us ... not so much!  I think we're ALL hoping for Phoenix SOON ;)

An Addition to the Family

For the record, I had NO intention of getting another dog yet .... NONE! I was simply engaging in some online research for when I felt "ready" for another fur-baby. I had determined that the right breed for me would be a Boston Terrier, but being that I am an adoption/rescue fan I wanted to make sure there was a BT rescue in Phoenix. I looked it up, and found there was/is ... and then ... I looked to see if we had one for WV (not really expecting there to be one).

Well, there was/is one up in Preston County and on the webpage for the organization was a pitiful tale of a small, deaf, female BT that some TOTAL IDIOT had tried to keep as an OUTDOOR dog (in this GOD-AWFUL winter we've had). If there was ever an outdoor dog - a Boston Terrier would NOT be it! They are tiny and nearly hairless, and I've read that due to their shortened snouts they have a harder time than most dogs regulating their body temp in general. She barely survived.

We went to SEE her yesterday .... and then .... we brought her home :)

She's actually AKC registered, only a little over a year old (born Dec 8th 2008), brindle and white, and her right eye is half blue. She's adorable! :) She's got a couple tiny infections at the moment, but otherwise she's fit as a fiddle. We're calling her "Gracie" for Grace O'Malley, an Irish 'pirate queen', because Gracie has one eye with a black patch (like a pirate) and one that's white. Some grainy cameraphone pics for your enjoyment:

 

yesterday's tour

First of all, I have to apologize for the fact that I FORGOT to check the settings on my cameraphone before I took these (once you turn the phone off, it reverts to the default TINY image size settings). I've tried, but can't manage to resize them (without going blurry) with the software I have on this computer - may or may not be able to do better when I get home. But hopefully these will give some idea:

now I've seen everything

There was a commercial on tv here in Phoenix last night, and then again this morning. The commercial opens by asking if you're "done having children and tired of having your period". It then proceeds to show 'interviews' with women who can now go swimming and horseback riding again, after a "simple hour-long procedure".

WEBSITE LINK

The tagline for the commercial? "Stop the Flow. Get your life back. Period."

BTW, I am NOT making this up!

PS - the news just called 52 degs. "chilly" - I <3 Phoenix!

Phoenix, at last!

After two separate, 2hr. delays (and a vow to NEVER fly through Minneapolis in February again ... saving $200 over the Atlanta route was NOT worth it IMHO!) I finally got into Phoenix around 9:45 pm (only a couple hours late!). The flights were crowded (and bumpy when approaching and departing Minneapolis), but I had lovely seat-mates, good tunes, and a good book I picked up at PIT.

So far, all I've seen of Phoenix is the airport, a couple of freeways, the "Home of the Angels, for Spring Training" as the taxi passed it, and my room @ the Ramada (ps - there is a Waffle House practically next door, I might have to try it - it smells divine!)

But now it's after 1am, and my body thinks it's past 3am ... and I am considerably worse for wear after sprinting through the Minneapolis Airport to make a connection that ended up being delayd (after I got there) ... so I'm going to have to catch up on everything TOMORROW :)

Princess Daisy Zamborski, The Duchess of Lewis-Upshur

We had to put my 'purty-girl', "Princess", to sleep this morning. She fell over shortly before 7am this morning, we don't know if it was a stroke, or a heart attack, or ??? - but after literally laying where she fell for a solid hour, she continued to have a LOT of trouble being ambulatory and was breathing poorly/strangely - she was clearly in distress. Being that it was a Saturday morning here in Podunk, USA - and a dangerously snowy one a that - the lone (and crappy) vet here in town wasn't open (and they apparently CANNOT be bothered to give you their hours in their after-hours recording - we had to drive by them to see what the story was); our regular vet in Fairmont (who is SUPPOSED to open @ 9am on Saturdays) wasn't open when we got there around 10am (nor on the way back after 11am); and even the "emergency" clinic in Fairmont wasn't going to have a vet there until 1pm. So after a really awful trek all over the blizzardy roads of North Central West Virginia, we finally got her to a different vet in Fairmont.

Princess was getting older, and we had talked a lot, for awhile now, as to whether it seemed to be time to put her to sleep. She had spondylosis of the spine that gave her serious problems with her back-end mobility, but with a regular dose of steroids (a tiny pill in a hot dog - something she NEVER complained about!) she was back to being functional - and most importantly - seemed not to be in any discomfort. But I was braced/prepared to have to put her to sleep in the very near future - when the steroids stopped working well enough to keep her feeling alright ... apparently other parts wore out ahead of the schedule I had in my mind, though. I'm just really grateful that my dad's superior snow-driving skills got us to the vet in one piece and in time to end her suffering, and that I got to be with her when she went.

Princess was a Boxer / Basset Hound mix (we only learned of the Basset Hound after a doggie DNA test) - and the sweetest, gentlest, over-grown baby in the world. We got her from the Lewis Upshur dog pound (down in Buckhannon, WV), along with her puppy Cali, after seeing her on a local tv adopt-a-pet segment. She had been dumped, with 4 of her puppies, in a large mailbox-like structure the shelter had set-up outside to facilitate anonymous (middle of the night) "donations". She was severely underweight, and had a ring around her neck where her fur had been worn off by her collar being too tight. I don't know what happened to her before we got her, of course, but she spent the rest of her life being terrified of thunderstorms and brooms. 

We got her in July of 1999, they estimated she was about a year old at the time, so we know she made it to at least 11, but there's also every chance she was older. Her name came about because we were trying to see if we could hit on whatever name she might have had before - trying Princess and Duchess both seemed to elicit a glimmer of recognition from her. Daisy is what my mother wanted to name her, Zamborski was the last name of a reporter on the local news who had a bit of an underbite (just like Princess), and Lewis-Upshur was from the name of the pound (from which we got her) that served Lewis and Upshur counties.

When we got her she was totally unsocialized to humans - she didn't have a clue what you were doing if you tried to give her a hug, and mind your nose if you tried to give her a kiss. But eventually - many "hugs" (involving clasping her nose to your bosom with one hand and embracing her with the other) down the road - she got the hang of it all, and became one of the sweetest and most loving dogs I've ever had. I will miss all the little things about her like her "wiggle spigot" (wagging little stump of a tail) and her "pumpkin head" (a move wherein she laid on her back asking for a tummy-rub, sending her jowls into a smiling Jack-O-Lantern position). I will miss everything about her - but I like to think she's now bounding (untethered and pain free) through a field where the flowers sprout roasted chickens (she had a life-long chicken addiction) and there are NEVER any thunderstorms.

Princess:

July1998? - Feb 6th 2010