Doggie Dentistry

Doggie Dentistry

So... I decided to grit my teeth, face this empty piece of paper tonight and try to put a few words on it that don't sound too much like drivel and dreck. Of course I'll probably be OK with them, but it'll be up to you to decide the drivel-ness and dreck-ness of what ends up here. So get your grading pencils sharpened and lets go!

March, in these precincts, is always an iffy go. It's what could be called, if you're a generous soul, a transitional month, a period of time when the iron grip of winter is supposed to begin to loosen and the warmer blessings of the springtime begin to show with more clement temperatures and the earliest flowers beginning to poke out of the warming earth. The maxim “in like a lion, out like a lamb” as a description of March is unfortunately a generality, not a specific. Some Marches follow the old adage, others are contrary and gleefully allow Old Man Winter some extra weeks to strut and fret upon this particular stage. So, with a week and a couple more days to go, is the Lamb gonna make his appearance? Or is the Lion gonna keep growling for a bit longer. Guess we'll find out 'fore too long.

It's seemed like a long, long winter this year and everyone is antsy for spring.

We had a fairly stressful go of it this past week, faithful reader, but I'm hoping the stressful part of it is over now. This time the author of our family's anxiety was our half-pint Schnauzer Barney.

It started one morning recently when my wife was playing with our dog and noticed some dried blood on his whiskers. She did some eyeballing of the pooch, peering here and there, and couldn't find any source of the blood. She washed it off his muzzle and, before leaving for work, mentioned it to me. I woke up enough to notice that there was a bloody spot on the carpeting next to the bed where the dog usually sleeps. It was about the size of a large grapefruit, so there had to have been a decent quantity of blood that would cause it. I checked out the dog also and didn't see any problem although it was a bit unnerving. I cleaned the spot from the carpet.

I discussed it with my wife and we decided he probably got a sharp piece of a rawhide chew and had cut the inside of his mouth. Odd but hey, it could happen. So we removed all the bones and pieces of rawhide that were laying here and there around the house. He wouldn't get cut again.

The next morning my wife had the dog on her lap when he started bleeding again. She took him to the sink in the kitchen and, seeing the blood was coming from his mouth, put a paper towel in there with some pressure and soon the flow stopped. That was enough of that, so I bundled him off to the vet that morning. She did an exam and after a long look finally found that he apparently had a bad tooth. Since it was a large canine molar and she didn't do extractions of that magnitude, she had me schedule a dental x-ray and extraction with another vet in town who specialized in doggie dentistry.

Yesterday I dropped him off at the pet hospital for this procedure. I received a call a couple hours later from the vet. He had Barney under anesthesia and had removed two teeth at that point in time. He had called to tell me that the dog had several more quite bad teeth and wanted my OK to continue with his extractions. I asked for the dog's prognosis after the extractions and he said it was excellent. I asked for a ballpark dollar amount and he gave it to me. It was expensive but less so than I'd feared. Since the prognosis was so good, I said to go ahead.

We got a call a bit later after the procedure was complete and the vet said he'd came through “with flying colors” and we could come get him later that day. He also said he expected Barney to be much better insofar as his general health was concerned as he would not be fighting the infections from those doggone bad teeth any more. He also said that, unlike a person who had gone through six tooth extractions and could be expected to be a while recovering, dogs usually were back up and raring to go in about 2 days.

Good news.

My wife picked him up after she got off work yesterday afternoon, and the vet was quite right. The dog was pretty active when he got home along with being very thirsty and hungry. We had to limit his intake for a while to make sure he was OK, but he's actually acting much better than he had for maybe the month or two before. We didn't know it, but he'd been hurting for a while.

He'll be on soft food for a week or two, but I don't think he'll be much the worse for wear and it'll be really nice to have a healthy dog back! Of course he's still sightless and a diabetic, but you'd be surprised at how little that bothers him. And as a possible bonus of this procedure he went through, the vet thought his diabetes might be much better also. We'll see about that in the days to come.

I feel really bad we didn't catch this problem earlier, but Barney's a pretty stoic little mutt and it's difficult to catch the signals of him hurting if he doesn't display much. In hindsight we can remember certain mannerisms over the past month or two that we should have equated with a problem, but we just missed 'em.

So now we have doggie toothpaste and a doggie toothbrush as a parting gift from his dentist. My question is this: how's he supposed to brush his teeth if he can't hold the toothbrush?

Wait a minute. You don't suppose that we're supposed to...

Oh lord, that ain't gonna be fun...

It's About Time

It's About Time

It seems like a really, really simple thing. I mean, really! At certain times of the year you go to your clocks and watches and chronometers and other timepieces and set the hour forward or backward one unit. If you're performing this task at midnight, you set your clock to either eleven pm or to one am the next day, depending on whether it's spring or fall.

I mean, really, really simple, eh?

And what possible difference would one hour make? How could this adjustment to your clocks make any difference in the world?

I find myself repeating that mantra twice every year and every time I do, my words turn to ashes in my mouth because it makes a lot of difference.

At least it seems to and I'm still not really sure why?

I guess the difficulties are all based on the human diurnal rhythms or our internal clocks. Or the way the sunshine ebbs and flows throughout the year. But it really does seem to be built into us on a sub-conscious level. We always hope that it won't bother us this time, but on the spring morning when you wake up after resetting your clock one hour ahead, your body will disagree with the clock. He will not be happy about your messing with the time.

Not at all.

Of course this phenomenon is really just jet lag hiding in its vernal or autumnal equinox disguise. It is indistinguishable from flying east or west to another time zone.

So, at least in my case, you end up walking around a bit tired and groggy and bumfuzzled for a week or so after the change. Bedtime seems to come too early (or late) and the morning dawns long before you're ready for it or strangely later.

I know there are places here and there that don't fiddle with their clocks twice a year. According to what I read on the internet, Arizona (with the exception of the Navaho Nation), Hawaii and the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa do not participate in this bi-annual procedure, but stay on “standard time” the year round.

I'm not terribly interested in exactly why they chose not to fiddle with their clocks although it's probably a fascinating story. My real question to folks living in those places is this: how do you know when to change the batteries on your smoke detectors? I always use the time change to remind myself to get another pair of nine-volts at the store and stick 'em in the detectors. I'm sure I'd be at a loss in Arizona. Maybe they use Christmas and Independence Day as their reminders. I'll have to ask the next time I see an Arizonan. Or is it Arizonian?

And then there's the question on how do you remember which way to move the hands of the clock? I guess the most memorable mnemonic is the old adage “spring forward and fall back”. Pretty straight forward, eh? But a little adversarial voice inside my noggin always tries to mess me up. He says stuff like, “how about you springing back and falling forward?” I try to ignore that crazy little voice, but he can cause me to second guess myself from time to time.

Another concern with this fun time of year: we have a lot of timepieces around my house. Yes, some of them do the twice-yearly jump all by themselves – the computers and cell phones and the televisions seem to take care of this task with commendable alacrity. Even one of our bedroom alarm clocks also does it. But there always seems to be a lot of battery clocks that require your physical attention and they always seem to be hung just a wee bit higher on the wall than you remembered them being. Or the timepiece needs some complicated pressing of buttons to achieve the desired hour. I had a wristwatch like that. After a couple years of swearing at the darn thing twice a year and trying to reread the instructions with its tiny print and oddly-phrased English, I finally gave up on it and relegated it to a drawer. The learning curve on the beast was sadly more than I wanted to attempt and a lot of the functions that the 873-page instruction manual said would do this or that, wouldn't. Or maybe this feeble-minded button pusher missed one of the manipulations that were required. Whatever the reason, off to the drawer it went. So I backslid to an analog watch a year or so ago with a stem that I could twist and turn and hands that would move to those manipulations. Easy-peasy.

Once in a while I'm guilty of forgetting to reset the clock on the thermostat. Missing that one results in some icy cold mornings when getting out of bed because the setback programs still think you're living on the “other” time. I usually get yelled at by my wife when I miss that one – she's the one that gets up early. And, of course, resetting the time on that isn't exactly easy either.

Even with all the downsides and hassles of changing the clocks, it is kind of nice in the spring to have that extra hour of daylight in the evenings. To do things with the family, to go outside and enjoy the daylight after toiling all day at work.

Except for the sad fact that I work second shift and the extra daylight in the evening is only a tease outside my office windows.

So I trudge along in my acclimation week, sleepy and a bit grumpy, glancing at the clock, mumbling to myself a bit and waiting for my slow-ass body to catch up with the new rhythms of the world.

Should be good to go in about a week. That'd be about time.

A Tale of Two Sisters

A Tale of Two Sisters

          ---Sometimes it feels like simply saying thank you just isn't enough.---

                                                                    &

After living these past six-and-a-half decades and watching how things work in the world and trying to understand what I've seen, I've discovered something. Most families seem to always have at least one member that's become the go-to person or the rallying point for the family. It might not even be the oldest or the smartest or the richest one, but there is always one that is accepted as the one you go to to get things done. They're the ones that the other family members defer to and ask to spearhead social occasions, to host and celebrate family happenings, the birthdays, the anniversaries, the weddings and the graduations.

They become the hosts, for many reasons, of the gatherings that provide the glue for the family and, in many instances, the extended family. They're the ones that know who's got a major birthday or anniversary coming up, the ones who always have a smile for your accomplishments and a cake to celebrate them. They seem to genuinely enjoy having family in for the holidays and to always be there to help out when times require a helping hand.

I am delighted to say I have two sisters who are magnificent in those positions.

My sister Kathy came into my family when my father remarried in 1976. My birth mother had passed away several years before and my father was lucky enough to find a wonderful woman with which to share the rest of his life. She had four children from her previous marriage and the oldest was named Kathy. Our blended family worked well together for quite a few years, with my father and her mom being the “go to” folks during that time period as is usually the case with parents. But when my father passed away in '92 and Kathy's mom began to grow infirm from age some years ago, the mantel of family “go to” person easily evolved onto her.

Kathy was always a stand-up gal. She was probably the one child of the blended family who had their head screwed on the best and who always demonstrated wisdom far beyond her years. She made a good marriage and had two great kids. She was the one that we all gravitated toward when tragedy struck; when dad passed away, when her sisters passed away long before their time, during the tough divorces and other life-altering circumstances she was there. She always had something for you to eat, a shoulder that you could cry on, a hanky to wipe away your tears.

She was our rock.

She took a job at a large church near where she lived and gained more and more responsibilities as her tenure there grew. She recently pleased all of us by answering a call and becoming an ordained minister, a position that seems to suit her well.

She was and is a tough, fair and deep-down nice lady who I'm proud to call sister.

On my wife's side of the family I'm extremely pleased to say I have another super sister! I'm not sure how I got so lucky, but I seemed to have hit a home run in wonderful women in the family.

Maenar became a member of the family some years ago when she married my brother-in-law Roy. Maenar and her family own and operate the most successful Chinese restaurant in the city in which she and Roy reside. You can probably understand why I was pleased and intrigued by that union. Suddenly I had a restaurant in the family! And, to top it off, a Chinese sister-in-law! How utterly exotic was that for this semi-naive Ohioan of German/English/Italian heritage. I had a cousin who had married a Thai girl during the Vietnam war and I always enjoyed visits with them. She was also a wonderful lady and a marvelous cook. And now, another Asian-American in the family. With a well-loved restaurant coming along for the ride!

How cool was that!

Maenar is about five foot nothing and her weight is barely in the triple digits. She has a world-class smile and is quite possibly, all kidding aside, one of the most intelligent people I've ever met, man or woman. Besides all that, she has a work ethic that would shame most people. She is an exemplary example of the “treat your customers right and they'll always come back” school of business owners. As is the norm for people like that, her workdays are always long. She is the front person in the restaurant and is the “face of the place”. People come from many miles around to eat there and do so over and over again.

And they always look for Maenar when they step in the door.

They know they'll get treated wonderfully and their meals will be superb. (Her brothers are the cooks and they're great!) The turnover at the restaurant is minimal. Her wait staff simply adore her. She's been known to close the restaurant, grab her “girls” and take them to New York for a weekend on the town to say thanks for work well done.

She is the one on that side of the family that everyone gravitates toward. She can plan a celebration and host it, spearhead a charity, support her husband in his business endeavors, lavish untold attention to her husband's children and their myriad of activities, and still be sure to ask you what you've been doing and how the world's been treating you. And really listen to your answers.

She's one of those folks who would rather stand than sit, walk than stand and run than walk. I'm constantly amazed at her energy and her joie de vivre.

Maenar is an absolute joy to be around and I am, again, also proud to call her sister.

My little immediate family, the three of us here in my small home town, have often been the recipients of my sister's invitations to their places, to sup with them, to celebrate the accomplishments of the family, to commiserate with them during down times. We've gathered together with the rest of the family at their homes and businesses to commemorate the holidays, to rejoice in engagements, children, marriages and noteworthy accomplishments, to join in the ongoing song of family and of solidarity.

And when the festivities are over, when the handshakes and hugs are concluded, when the promises to get together again “real soon” are spoken, how do you say thank you? How do you express your joy and happiness at being a part of this strange and wondrous thing, this amalgamation of disparate people with wildly differing lives who constitute the members of this family, this totally unique thing?

You say thank you Kathy and you say thank you Maenar.

But it never, ever seems to be enough.

So you sit down and maybe try to express the thank you in written form, trying to say the words differently. Maybe if you said them in another language they might be more eloquent. Gracias. Danke. M goi. Dank je. Grazie. Domo arigato. Xie xie. Merci. Spasibo.

But, in the end, it's always thanks Maenar and thanks Kath.

And it still just doesn't seem like enough...