It’s not that I’ve forgotten about you, dear readers of my blog. All 20 of you. It’s just that lately, most of the things that have been going on have been either stunningly mundane (stunning in the sense of inducing unconsciousness, not dazzling) or really rather disgusting. It’s just how I roll, yo.

Granted, I don’t have kids yet, so there are folks who can out-disgusting me with one hand tied behind their backs, but we do have a dog. A dog who, we are getting more and more confirmation, has a sensitive stomach. It makes me glad that we made it a habit early on not to feed her much people-food, because I can only imagine what that might do. When she was a puppy, Shiloh balked at eating the dog food we tried to give her–she would eat it, eventually, when she got desperately hungry, but it was clearly not what she wanted to do. When we switched her to a formula without corn, wheat, or soy (the most common dog allergens in foods), things improved dramatically. Not only was she more eager to eat, but her… erm… other body functions, shall we say, became healthier and more regular. She still loves an occasional treat that contains wheat or corn (like MilkBones or a few pieces of popcorn), but having drastically reduced her intake seems to have made a big difference.

We never had her tested for allergies, but the results seem to have been working, so I can only be glad.

As I’ve mentioned, the past six months or so have been rather hectic. During that time, I’d estimate that I’ve spent almost a month away from home–almost all of it out-of-state–and Matt has been gone for about three weeks, including youth group retreats and overnights, our vacation, and camp a few weeks ago. This week will bring him up to a month away, as well. That’s aside from our erratic schedules on a day-to-day basis. Normally, most days I’m home doing housewifey or writing things for at least 30 hours of my “work week”, and the other 10 are spent out and about. Recently, that ratio as often been reversed. But not always.

It makes for a very uncertain schedule, and the stress has, from time to time, been wearing on all three of us. Matt and I tend to show that stress in different ways than Shiloh does. We have the liberty of sleeping in from time to time, and shooting things in video games to decompress, and reading for a few hours to get away from reality a bit. Shiloh has fewer options. Yes, she sleeps. But mostly, her body chemistry gets out of whack, specifically in her sensitive GI tract. In early June, that began to manifest itself as intermittent diarrhea.

We went to the vet when it was clear that things weren’t clearing up in the normal course of “the dog ate some random plant and gave herself the runs”, and the meds they gave us seemed to help right away. For about a week, things were looking good. There were no surprises for us in the office. Shiloh was eating eagerly (we’re pretty sure her appetite was off because her tummy felt bad–I don’t like to eat when my stomach hurts, either). And then it returned, getting progressively worse.

Another trip to the vet revealed an overgrowth of a normal canine digestive bacteria–usually stress-related. We got another round of the anti-diarrheal medicine and another package of doggy probiotics, which promote healthy GI bacteria levels. We have accepted the fact that at some point it might be necessary to keep her on the probiotics (at about a quarter the dosage she’s gotten for the problem-solving) long-term. They’re little chewable tablets that she seems to enjoy, so it wouldn’t be much of a hardship.

Of course, since I’ve always been one to want more information rather than less, I have been looking at the various options, and have found the following:

• Probiotics tend to work best when they’re species-specific, because each species has different normal intestinal bacterial growth. So adding a human or feline probiotics supplement, while it may help, will not be AS helpful as a canine formula. Good to know.
• The probiotic our vet has recommended for Shiloh, and which does seem to have been working, is Iams Veterinary Formula Prostora Max. This is available through vets and a few online outlets, but not most pet stores–and, oddly enough, our vet’s price is $20 cheaper per package than the online price, even before shipping.
• I had been underestimating Shiloh’s weight for quite some time, it seems. She weighed in at just under 65lbs on her first vet visit, and two pounds more for the second (at least the intestinal problems have not caused a weight loss). This puts her firmly in the “large breed” category, which means that although her current dog food isn’t BAD for her, a diet that is lower in fat and higher in protein will probably be beneficial, and maybe easier on her stomach as well. We’ll be trying her on a large breed diet as soon as we get to the end of this bag of food.

So that’s where things stand with the dog. She just took her last probiotic tablet this evening with dinner, so hopefully things will continue to improve. I’ve been working on getting my schedule back to something more normal, and I can only hope that Matt’s absence this week isn’t agitating her. She misses him, I can tell, but she hasn’t seemed stressed out.

I’m sure, if I’m wrong, that I’ll be cleaning more bits of carpet in the next few days. Fingers crossed.

See, I’m not sure anyone really wanted to know all that. But here I am, posting about it, because it’s a big part of my time and brain space lately. Glamorous, my life is not. :)

We’ll see if I can’t balance it out a bit more in the coming months.

Shiloh’s training stuff has been in effect for about a week, and she seems to be making progress. Or maybe we are the ones making progress. Hard to tell.

I went to California for about a week to visit a very good friend–we had a lovely time, including activities like hanging out at her place in the middle of a big desert, getting evacuated because of a gas leak a half a block away, going to Disneyland, a day at the San Diego Zoo, and various and sundry other visity-ish things.

While I was gone, several rather major things happened with Matt’s job. I’m not particularly inclined to go into details, but the end result is that at least temporarily, he’s doing his job and his former supervisor’s job. The details of what will be happening long-term haven’t been finalized yet, but it’s thrown rather a large rock into our little pond. It’s a good rock–he’s excited about things that are happening, and enjoying moving forward with things–but there’s a lot to juggle and balance, especially for the next two months until this school semester ends.

Matt was sick when I got home, and then passed his dastardly head cold to me, so I was sick over last weekend. It took more time and energy to recover than I would have liked, but I think things are looking up on that front.

The past few days have been lovely outside, and I’ve been able to do some reading out on the porch. Wonderful. Too bad there’s snow in the forecast again day after tomorrow, but that’s classic spring in Colorado.

To alleviate the general boringness of this update, I’ll end with a Shiloh anecdote. A few nights ago, I was watching Dirty Jobs on Netflix when Matt got home–I paused the tv show so I could talk to him. A few seconds later, Shiloh drew our attention by sniffing cautiously at the tv cabinet. There hadn’t been anything yummy-smelling up there all day, so we couldn’t figure out what she’d be interested in. Just then, she took a step back, her hackles came up a bit, and she started a growl–and we realized that when I paused the show, it caught a frame where Mike Rowe was addressing the camera, and on the new tv his torso was almost life-sized. Shiloh was growling at the strange man (who she couldn’t smell) in her living room.

Yeah, not very momentous, really, but we found it immensely amusing. Poor dog, thinking someone got into the house without her noticing.

Alas, in time, the family moved away from the apartment and the big field full of geese to chase. Shiloh was sad about this lack in her life, but there were other good things going for the new apartment, like being able to see out the windows, so it pretty much evened out. And, on special occasions, Shiloh got to visit places where there were geese to chase. It was a good life.

(Okay, the third person narration is beginning to take its toll, so TA-DAA! We switch!)

A few weeks ago, I brought Shiloh to the seminary campus when I picked up Matt from class. With only one car, we often drop off and pick up, and sometimes it’s really easy to load Shiloh into the car and give her a bit of time to explore a less-familiar place, interact with a variety of people, go running to greet Matt when he comes out of the building, and sometimes, when there aren’t lots of people outside, I can let her off the leash to chase the geese while we wait for class to end.

I generally wait until there aren’t many people around for two reasons:

First, Shiloh can be very, very friendly and excited when she’s meeting new people–when she’s off the leash, this usually involves a very fast incoming approach. This often causes some concern because people aren’t sure whether she’ll jump on them (she won’t) and, regardless, she’s a pretty good-sized dog. People who aren’t comfortable around dogs are usually pretty freaked out by 60 pounds of canine barreling gleefully in their direction. Until we get that under a bit more control, I’m generally very aware of her exuberant tendencies.

Second, technically speaking the campus isn’t really geared toward dogs. There’s an outdoor patio where people sometimes bring smaller dogs on sunny days, but none of the buildings allow non-service animals and none of the on-campus housing allows pets. This is entirely understandable–many people who have dogs overestimate their dog’s good behavior (and lack of mess-making), or assume others will welcome an animal simply because the owner welcomes it. (See above for my awareness that not all people like dogs or are comfortable around them.) Granted, there’s absolutely nothing that even slightly indicates that dogs aren’t allowed on campus–many people love to see Shiloh and many students come play with her for a while, mentioning that they miss their own family dogs–but I still feel just a little bit like I should be extra-well-behaved when I bring Shiloh, especially when any of the seminary higher-ups are around.

At any rate, a few weeks ago I had Shiloh on campus. It was chilly, early evening, but the sun hadn’t set yet so in the light it was warmer. I know the Seminary grounds staff has been complaining about the geese, which are a significant problem. They don’t really migrate any more around here, so these geese have been in the campus area for several years, at least. The deterrents that the seminary uses don’t really work any more, but using new ones will require quite a bit of money invested, and that’s not really an option in this economic climate. Anyway, there weren’t many people around, but there were some geese, so I let Shiloh off the leash and told her to go get them.

With great joy, she sprinted toward the geese, making sure they all took off and were going to stay airborne, and then came back to me, immensely pleased with herself. I spotted another cluster of geese around the corner of a building, so we went and chased them off, too, then returned to the main courtyard area.

Who should be coming across the quad than the Head of Building and Grounds! I waved, since we know each other from the time I was employed there, and he headed toward me.

“Is that your dog?”

“Yep, she is.” Please, don’t be mad at me for letting her run around off-leash.

“I’d like to buy her.” He laughs, so I know he’s not really serious. “What I wouldn’t give for a couple of dogs on campus, trained to run those geese off. But we can’t, because of liability, long-term.”

I volunteered that Shiloh will be glad to help whenever she’s on campus, and Tom made it clear that we’re welcome any time. Yay!

Fast forward to Tuesday. Matt and I were flying back from New York, and when I turned on my phone after our last flight I had a voicemail waiting–it was Tom, asking me to give him a call.

Turns out the school is hosting a big dinner the night before the inauguration ceremony for the new president (who started back in July), and they want the campus to be as clean as possible. Shiloh and I have been contracted to arrive on campus at 9am and stay until a little after 5pm, and keep the geese out of the main areas of campus so the sidewalks will stay clean for the fancy visitors.

I think this is hilarious, but I’m glad to be able to help. Tom asked me to set an amount I’d like to be paid and he’ll get it approved. I have no idea what to ask for. If it’s a warm day, I intend to sit and read or write outside for most of the day, with occasional circuits to be sure the geese don’t get any crazy ideas into their heads about sneaking back. If it’s cold, it’ll be quite a bit more tedious.

But, for a while at least, Shiloh will be the Official Goose Chaser of Denver Seminary.

I couldn’t make this stuff up.

Matt has the car today, so I’m stuck here at the apartment. Stuck isn’t really the best word. I mean, I do have legs. I can walk somewhere–there’s a wide variety of things within a mile of here. Or I could ride my bike, which opens the circle of possibilities further. And, you know, there are city buses. But the easiest, coolest (as in, air conditioned) mode of transportation is the car, and I don’t have access to it today, which means either I will lie on the couch and waste time (tempting, but guilt-inducing) or I will get up and get to work on the variety of things just waiting for my personalized attention (delayed gratification–stinky now, feels great later).

The dog is extra-needy today. She wants attention and activity. Both Matt and I have been gone during the day for the last five or six days, so her life has been less than exciting, napping and waiting for us to come home. We’ll see if I can work out a trip to the dog park after Matt returns with the motorized chariot. I suspect she will curl up touching me once I settle into place at my workspace, which today is my folding table since my desk is covered in Stuff I Need To Deal With Eventually and if I have to look at all that Stuff I won’t get any revisions done. And nobody wants that.

That’s about all the news. Things here are, on the whole, quite good. Can’t complain, except that I’m not getting enough done. And that’s nobody’s fault but my own.

I say, “Brain, how about working now so I can keep moving on this manuscript that’s been languishing in disrepair since February?”And my brain says, “:-P”. And makes a rude noise at me.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

Work has been irregular in pretty much every sense of the word, and is likely to continue that way for some time to come. It’s a little unsettling, but I’m managing. I’ve read a lot this week.

There’s a little boy banging his chair repeatedly on the patio a few feet away from me and I am so tempted to say something to his dad, who is ignoring him to talk on the phone.

In good news, Matt’s employers are upping his paid hours so that he’s eligible for medical insurance through them. So that will save us quite a bit of money on insurance and bring in more in paychecks. Good all around.

And I bought a bird feeder thingy to hang out on our porch so the birds will come. Shiloh likes watching the birds. We’ll see if it works. We’ve been neglecting her a bit. Not a lot, just a bit, but she’s playing it up like a star actress. Melodrama Dog.

That’s about all from this quarter. Maybe I’ll be witty tomorrow….

My blog stats did something funky about three weeks ago, and now even though I know people are stopping by, I don’t get any record of it with wp-stats, which is the widget I use. Which means I don’t pay as much attention, and I don’t post, and everything is really quite silly.

I think I know how to fix the stats issue (thanks Will), but unfortunately I have neither the time nor the burning inclination to do so at the moment. Still, I will try to be better about blogging. Because it’s fun, and I get to tell funny stories, and that’s good for me.

Things have been busy. I’ve been trying to catch up on getting things done that have fallen by the wayside in the last few months, and Matt is coming up toward the end of his semester at school, so we’re both a little bit brain-dead.

Also, Shiloh has turned into the neediest dog ever. If we’re sitting somewhere, she’s right beside us, looking at us mournfully, as if we don’t regularly pet her and feed her and take her for walks and, recently, at least once a week to the big dog park with WATER! To run in! I really need to remember to take the camera with us one of these times.

But still, she wants to be rightbeside us all the time, as you can see in this lovely photo, where she found Matt working on the floor and just made herself at home:

Silly puppa.

I’ve spent most of the day cleaning my desk, which might sound to some people like the job of an hour or so, but those people have not witnessed my desk. When I’m done entirely, I’ll take a photo and you can all ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at how lovely and clean it is.

In the meanwhile, Bob2 seems to be faring well. I’d post a photo, but it would look pretty much like all the other ones you’ve seen of Bob2 thus far, so that seems silly.

Shiloh has been a bit neglected lately, in the sense that Matt and I have both been either too busy or too disinclined to brave the cold temperatures in order to take her out for a proper walk or run around the park. But she makes do with running around the house like a demon with one or the other of her toys in her mouth. She also spends a great deal of time looking out the window, now that she can both see out a window and look at something (the parking lot) which is interesting at least some of the time.

Notice that the ledge is at just the right height for her to rest her chin there while she watches. Very convenient.

I took this one this morning when she was playing with her squeaky bowling pin. The body has a nice duck-call noise when you squeeze it, and the rubber’s tough enough to take her chewing for more than five minutes without falling apart.

So that’s what’s going on in the Whitt home today.

Well, I caved and turned it back in to the repair folks, on the off chance that they can fix the whole thing by 8:45pm tomorrow, because otherwise I will have to refrain from using it in the airport or on the plane or any other place where people might be disturbed by the sound of a turbine engine preparing for takeoff. It is possible for me to survive for an entire week without the internet; it is even possible for me to survive without my laptop (though admittedly harder). But it is not preferable, given the state of my various projects and the fact that I assume I’ll be doing a fair amount of research online about the various nearby things to do in Nashville. Or maybe I’ll just take the AlphaSmart and let Mom be all retro with her printed tour books and maps on folding paper that are kept in the car. We shall see.

At any rate, I was rather thoroughly annoyed at the Mac repair schedule and myself (for not caving earlier, when it would have been less of a problem to get things fixed before I leave) and generally disgruntled at the whole situation, but fortune is on my side once again, because one of the things I’ll be doing in Nashville is making a quilt, which means I got to buy fabric. One forgets, when it’s been this long between buying project fabric, how very nice it is to go into a quilting shop and have all these beautiful, lovely choices, and be able to think of zillions of ways to put them all together into something fantastic. Some people, when they’re upset, go clothes shopping. Me? Books and fabric. Yes sirree. That’s all I need.

And this evening is now devoted to laundry; first, the new fabric I bought, and then the regular laundry so Matt doesn’t end up walking around in dirty clothes by the end of next week. I’ll also be ironing the new fabric, which means the dog will be in a state of anxious near-panic for the entire evening. She is NOT a fan of the ironing board, but we do not know why. So it goes.

If I get my laptop back tomorrow, I’ll blog from Nashville. If not, I’ll catch you all in a week.

Ironically, I realized on the drive to work today that although I remembered to water my cactus this morning, I forgot to water the dog. Er… to refill the dog’s water dish. You might think that’s horribly neglectful of me, but I’m not too worried. First of all, the toilet’s open if she gets really desperate (not that I hope she will take advantage of that option, but it’s there in an emergency, and she’s been known to do it before) and second of all, I seriously doubt it will get warm enough to dehydrate her any further today.

We have an informal temperature scale in our household, in which the person who takes the dog out in the morning gauges the weather for the benefit of the other person’s clothing and/or jacket choice for the day. The terms vary somewhat, but in general there’s super hot, hot, warm, no temperature (also called “perfect”), chilly, cold, and freakin’ freezing. It was freakin’ freezing this morning. Thus, little danger of overheated, dehydrated dog in the house today.

Furthermore, I purposefully did not fill the dog’s water dish before I fed her. This is because recently she has had the most amazingly foul breath. (No, seriously. Foul. FOUL.) It got bad enough that we went to the pet store for bad-dog-breath remedies and came back with some minty stuff that goes into her water dish and does seem to have worked, more or less. At any rate, Shiloh LOVES her new minty water, and she tends to drink rather a lot of it, especially right when we put down a new, full bowl. After three days of unfortunate experience, we ascertained that Shiloh drinking a lot of her minty water + a full belly of food = vomit on the carpet. Depending on whether the water was consumed before or after the food was added, the vomit is either plain liquid or sprinkled with entirely undigested bits of kibble. We may be headed into the realm of too much information here, so I’ll wrap up by saying that we’ve decided a fresh bowl of minty water at the same time as a bowl of food is a supremely bad idea. So I fed the dog this morning and intended to put the water down about a half hour later, after her belly had some time to settle with the food, and then we got into a rush to leave the house and I plum forgot. (Plumb? I don’t think I’ve ever typed that phrase before, so I never had to know how to spell it.)

So that’s how the cactus got watered and the dog didn’t.

Also worth noting this morning, my boss is in a musical mood. Between appointments he was rather lustily singing lyrics I’ve never heard to a rather well-known melody from The Pirates of Penzance, but of course I can’t remember the name or the correct lyrics for the life of me now. I don’t know if he made up the lyrics or if they’re simply a version I’ve never heard before, but they were highly enjoyable (about how some people think it best to be melancholy but he prefers cheerful melody or something like that). When he got tired of singing, I still caught bits and pieces of the melody as he whistled to himself.

Mornings like this remind me of how much I really do like my job.

I’m headed to Nashville in two days–if all works out, I’m going to take some fabric with me to make into a quilt top since Mom can bring a sewing machine. So this morning’s agenda is to finalize my math on how many fabrics I need and how much of them, and put together a list so I can go shopping this evening.

Aside from being crafty, Mom and I will be exploring the city in a leisurely fashion while we’re there. Neither of us have been before, so if you’ve got suggestions on fun things to do, leave me a comment!

At any rate, the whole house really is pretty appalling. There’s stuff everywhere… not dirty stuff. Just a jumble of things that haven’t been taken care of or put in their proper place.

And, oddly enough, I’m sort of looking forward to cleaning today. As long as I can keep moving, it shouldn’t take too long, and my iPod has full battery power, so I can get my groove on while I work, too.

The dog seems to think she’s entitled to more excitement than we are currently providing, but that’s just tough cookies for her. She’ll survive. I’m pretty sure she’s been watching the bunnies outside through the window, and wants to go chase them.

It’s supposed to get above 70 this afternoon, so maybe we can head to a dog park and have some fun a bit later.

Have I mentioned that I like Girl Scout Cookies? Well I do. And now I have. I’m sure you feel better knowing that. I know I do.