Exhaustion Reigns

From the SSDS (same shit different day) files…

On Friday the puppy was still beet red so we went back to the vet’s office and left her there. We pretty much told them not to call us until they figure out what’s going on with her. A few hours later the vet who owns the animal hospital called to say he taken the puppy to a nearby doggie dermatologist. Examinations revealed they don’t think she has a destructive auto-immune disorder but the vet wants to send skin biopsies to some immuno-histo-pathologist something or other in Toronto to be sure that the problem is only severe allergic reaction. (To what, we have no idea… the list of possibles is long and varied.) Oh, and there’s new medication for you to try. I okayed all that without even asking the cost, and I still haven’t gotten the bill because the vet’s office had a power outage when I went to pick the dog up.

Test results will probably be back Tuesday. In the meantime, the medication appears to have worked in alleviating the symptoms because her color is back to normal. Hooray for that!

As for me, the headache I’ve had most of the week has been replaced by cramps.

Aside from dealing with the dog, I’ve divided my time between the website project I’m doing and visiting with Mel’s parents, who were here for the weekend. The project is going well and I’d guess I’m halfway or two-thirds of the way to being done.

So, what’s new?

Today we spent the day at African Lion Safari. This is a nature preserve that you drive your car through to see animals from all over the world. It was really awesome. Many of the animals approached the car and it was neat because you could see them up close. But you knew they’d been conditioned to do that because people = food. I don’t mean we were in danger of being eaten, it’s that the animals have been fed by the park visitors.

Nevermind that there were signs posted everywhere that said “Do NOT Feed Animals,” apparently there are a lot of illiterates in Canada. Several cars ahead of us an Asian couple with a couple of kids were blatantly feeding baboons, zebras, giraffes and other animals. They must have had a bag of produce in their car because they were handing out carrots and celery stalks like crazy. I don’t know why, but something about the whole scene really irked me. If Mel’s folks hadn’t been there I probably would’ve been more vocal about it. Mel pointed out that the parents weren’t exactly providing their kids with good life lessons by helping them break the rules rather than abide by them. Of course, we are the perfect parents since we have no kids.

In other news, I need to start looking for a new(ish) car. Looking at the auto section in today’s newspaper, I was dismayed to learn that all the 0% financing deals seem to be expiring at the end of the month – that’s tomorrow. I was hoping to have some time to look around and still be able to take advantage of that. Too late, though because I’m not really even sure what I want at this point. Probably a mid-sized SUV, I’d guess. So far, I know I’m going to look at the Subaru Forrester and Buick Rendevous. Oh, and I will not buy a Honda.

Help me out, will you? Make a suggestion if there’s a vehicle you think I should check out that is 4WD/AWD (hey, it snows here!), 4 door, somewhat sporty, six cylinder but good on gas and has all the standard stuff (air bags, ABS, power everything, etc.).