Labradoris

We all had a really nice day today.  In the morning, we went berry picking, and then came home and cooked a Triple Berry and Peaches Pie (yum!).  We packed a picnic lunch, and went out to one of the local wineries to meet some friends and have some good laughs.  This winery is never busy, and it's a great place to spread out for a picnic and let the dogs play in the pond.  The weather was perfect today - low 70s and a slight breeze with overcast sun.  We then went back home and played 'clean up this messy house', and opted for a low-maintenance call-in-and-pick-up food option.  Since the restaurant delivers the food to the car, I decided to take Cosette with me for the drive.  Weather was beautiful, sun was starting to set, windows down, music loud.  Perfection.  Here's how we spent some of our Sunday evening driving home:

"I love my dog.  I love all my dogs.  Every dog I ever had, I still love 'em.  And in my life, believe me, I have had me a bunch of goddamn dogs.  Because you keep on gettin' a new one, don't ya?  It's true.  As life goes on, you keep gettin' one new dog after another.  That's the whole secret of life.  Life is a series of dogs."
-George Carlin

The three of us are sitting in a restaurant.  I hear Lady Gaga's "Love Game" come on the radio.  I turn to Little Guy and I say, "Hey LG, can you say, Lady Gaga?"

--Now here's where you go click on the link and listen to the first 15 seconds of the song if you aren't familiar with this particular singer --

He looks at me and says, "Lady Gaga!  Wets have some fun this beat is sick I wanna take a wide on your disco tick."

My mouth dropped open and I just stared at him.  Joel started laughing, and I asked him where he learned that from.  He said his cousin listens to it a lot, which made sense.  But, I thought, you know, I'd better stop singing this song entirely...

Heard in line at coffee shop/smoothie bar behind a woman in her 40s:

Phone rings several times.  Ignores it.

Phone rings once more.  The woman sighs and reaches into her pocket.
 
"WHAT?!"

Her voice seeths with fury.

"I TOLD you that I would MEET you when I am FINISHED."

Each word is carefully enunciated,  venom spilling out of every syllable. 

"No.  No.  I am in line at the coffee shop, and I..."

"I said I'm IN LINE AT THE COFFESHOP.  And once I get my CUP of COFFEE, I will come there.  You were supposed to look around while I shopped and got my cup of coffee.  Then we were going to meet back up.  No.  NO.  Let me tell you one more time:  I am IN LINE for my CUP of COFFEE.  When I am DONE, I will MEET YOU, and then you can WAIT...ON...ME." 

It is clear the person on the other end has not responded, but she angrily snaps her phone shut and sighs loudly.  She finally has her turn at the counter, and the server asks how she is doing, and she cheerily replies, "Fine!  How about you?" and my immediate thought is, you'll speak friendly to a stranger but not to a person who knows you and probably loves you? 

From the way the woman was talking, it sounded like it might be her daughter.  I tried to place myself in her shoes, the mother of an unruly, snotty teenager.  But, I just couldn't imagine myself hanging up on someone like that, especially if I knew them!  So, I'm sorry, angry woman on the phone, but it sounds like you are very angry at something, and it probably didn't have anything to do with the person who was calling you.

This is a horse that was out by a neighboring winery.  He turned back around to look and it was like he was saying, "Sup, yo!  Why are you taking a picture of my behind?

Okay, wait, so I have to tell you about this one before I leave today.

So last night, I went into the kitchen to take some medication, and I had many, many things on my mind.  I retrieved a cup from the cabinet, poured a glass of water and even filled up the Brita filter, and then put the Brita back into the refrigerator.  I opened another cabinet and pulled out the medicine bottle, uncapped it, took one out, threw it into my mouth and swallowed it with some water.  I was mid-way through another gulp of water when it suddenly struck me:

WHAT HAD I JUST INGESTED?

My mouth still full of water, I looked down at the bottle I held in my hand.  It was green, and not what I was intending to take.  I read the label in horror:
Patient Name:  Trooper
Drug:  Cephalexin

OH.  MY.  GOD.  I just took my dog's medicine!!

I raced past Joel into my office, and sat down at the computer immediately.  "What's wrong?" he asked, perplexed.  "Uh, I just swallowed Trooper's medicine.  Don't ask me why, because I don't have a good answer."

I Googled "Cephalexin" and the second hit on the list read "Cephalexin (Keflex)."  I shot straight up out of my chair and shouted, "KEFLEX!!  KEFLEX??  I TOOK KEFLEX?!?!  I'M ALLERGIC TO KEFLEX!!"  I shakily ran to my files and dragged out a copy of my medical records.  "Known allergies...Keflex."  SHIT! 

I brushed past Joel and said, "I've got to throw it up.  I'm allergic to Keflex."  A slight look of horror came across his face, and I reassured him that the last time I had taken Keflex had resulted in a rash and hives, nothing life-threatening.  But still.  I didn't want any of it in my system.

I marched into the bathroom, got down on my knees, and pried open the toilet seat.  I looked down at the water and thought, "Really?  I have to do this?  It's not fair!  I'm SOBER!"  The next few minutes were not pleasant, and I'll just say this:  I'm not sure I'll be able to eat Tom Kar soup at my favorite Thai restaurant anymore, and I would be a horrible bulimic.  I couldn't hardly get anything up.  Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough, but I thought to myself, "You know, this is not a good time to not have high self-efficacy about your ability to gag yourself."  I finally managed to get something up that resembled a capsule, and I flushed the toilet and washed my hands.  I came out of the bathroom, and said to Joel, "I don't know what the hell that was about, but, I'm going to make sure I'm a little more cognitively present the next time I attempt to take medication.  RIDICULOUS."

Well, Internet.  I have another confession to make.

I almost passed out at the optometrist's office today.

I've had it happen before, but, I had a scratched cornea then, and well, that was just a whole mess in and of itself.  But this, this was nothing.  This was for no good reason.

I filled out my medical information, and checked the box where I requested no retinal scan (an extra charge) and no eye dilation.  I knew I just wanted to see if I needed glasses or something because my eyes were fatiguing after reading for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and...so I didn't think I needed any fancy tests.

I walk back with a woman who gives me several visual tests on three separate machines, lined up right in a row.  First, a test with a dot in the middle and wavy lines on the side, then a focusing and unfocusing barn that I'm supposed to look at, and then she says, "And right over here, this will deliver a puff of air to each eye."

"No," I say.  She looks up from  her paperwork, trying to determine if I'm joking.  "No thank you," I say.  "They'll do one in the back then," she says, tightening her mouth and marking on my medical sheet.  We'll see about that, I think.

So, I'm led back to the darkened office where a nice enough doctor sits me down.  She asks me a few questions, and then asks if I want contacts or glasses.  Neither, I say, I'm not really here for those - I just want to make sure my eyes are okay, to see if I need glasses or something.  She gives me a funny look but proceeds with the eye exam.  She has me focus long-distance with each eye, and then places the viewer with the different lenses against my face.  Which one is better, 1 or 2?  3 or 4? and on and on she goes.  I start to panic a little because some of the lines I'm not able to see.  They become very blurry to me and I tell her my eyes are hurting.  I have to take a break and squeeze my watering eyes shut.  I start to panic a little.  Why are my eyes so blurry?  How has my vision become impaired so quickly?  (This is the moment where I have stopped thinking rationally.  Because if I were thinking rationally, I would reason that I have 20/20 vision, and the lenses she is having me peer through are corrected, which makes my own vision appear blurry.  This is supposed to be happening.)  What is wrong with me?  Oh my gosh, she's trying out so many different measurements.  Maybe I have cataracts or something.  Oh shit, are they going to have to do surgery?  Maybe I'll have to have surgery.  This month.  Maybe this week.  I should arrange this before I take preliminary exams.  What if my eyes are totally screwed?! 

I start to fidget and notice how warm it is in the room.  I look over at Joel, who is sitting patiently nearby for emotional support.  He looks so calm over there.  How can he be so calm over there when I am sitting here, I'm going to have to go into surgery this week and HOW IS HE SO CALM?  Why is my doctor not saying anything?  Is she going to wait to break the bad news later? 

My doctor pulls the viewer away from me and pulls out two instruments, each which shine a light into my eye.  She edges closer to me, close enough that I can smell her perfume.  It smells like a mix between something Elizabeth Taylor and a heartbroken teenager would wear.  It makes me a little sick.  And, heaven help me, the room IS SO HOT!  I'm going to pass out.  She pulls away and sits back down, making a few notes on her chart.

Okay, here it is.  I'm feeling a little woozy but maybe I'm going to make it.  She has to tell me the bad news.  "Well, you've got good vision - 20/20 in both eyes, you are maybe a little near-sighted in your right eye, but it's not enough to make any kind of difference.  As for the eye fatigue and headaches, I'm just going to prescribe a light prescription for reading glasses for you.  And you should get a glaucoma test soon."  That's it?, I think.  I'm not going to die?  A surge of endorphins races through me and I don't feel so well. 

"Can I lay down?" I ask.  She looks at me strangely again, and I apologize sheepishly.  I pull myself out of the chair and kneel down against the wall.  "It's hot in here, isn't it?" she says, and I mutter, "Yeah, a little."

She looks down at me with her hand on the door handle, pathetic me, curled up like a baby on the dusty tile, and suddenly I feel very small and not very intelligent.  She inquires again, "You're a doctoral student?"  I look up at her.  "Yes."  She looks back down at me, and then opens the door.  "Huh," she says. 

"Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog's owners, Ron, his wife Lisa, and their little boy Shane, were all very attached to Belker, and they were hoping for a miracle. I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family we couldn't do anything for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home. As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for six-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience. The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker's family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm , petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away. The little boy seemed to accept Belker's transition without any difficulty or confusion. We sat together for a while after Belker's Death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, 'I know why.' Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I'd never heard a more comforting explanation. He said, 'People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life -- like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?' The six-year-old continued, 'Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don't have to stay as long.'"
-Anonymous